{"product_id":"tornado-of-life-isbn-9780262548427","title":"Tornado of Life","description":"\u003cb\u003eStories from the ER: a doctor shows how empathy, creativity, and imagination are the cornerstones of clinical care.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTo be an emergency room doctor is to be a professional listener to stories. Each patient presents a story; finding the heart of that story is the doctor’s most critical task. More technology, more tests, and more data won’t work if doctors get the story wrong. When caring for others can feel like venturing into uncharted territory without a map, empathy, creativity, imagination, and thinking like a writer become the cornerstones of clinical care. In \u003ci\u003eTornado of Life\u003c\/i\u003e, ER physician Jay Baruch shares these struggles in a series of short, powerful, and affecting essays that invite the reader into stories rich with complexity and messiness.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePatients come to the ER with lives troubled by scales of misfortune that have little to do with disease or injury. ER doctors must be problem-finders before they are problem-solvers. Cheryl, for example, whose story is a chaos narrative of “and this happened, and then that happened, and then, and then and then and then,” tells Baruch she is “stuck in a tornado of life.” What will help her, and what will help Mr. K., who seems like a textbook case of post-combat PTSD but turns out not to be? Baruch describes, among other things, the emergency of loneliness (invoking Chekhov, another doctor-writer); his own (frightening) experience as a patient; the patient who demanded a hug; and emergency medicine during COVID-19. These stories often end without closure or solutions. The patients are discharged into the world. But if they’re lucky, the doctor has listened to their stories as well as treated them.Table of Contents:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cli\u003eChief Complaint\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eNot the Beginning\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eVulnerability\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eTornado of Life\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eBackstory\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eWhy Medicine Needs More Not-Knowing\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eAmbassador to Nightmares\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eCatheters\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eWhen Loneliness is an Emergency\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eTrust as Protection\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eUpside Down\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eWaiting for the Surge\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eNarrative Risks: Shape, Place, and Gutter\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eZebras\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eHug, or Ugh\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eConstraints\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eMoving on\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eCompassion at the Crossroads\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003ePain: A Story That’s Hard to Treat\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eThere’s Dying, and Dying Now\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eHolding On, Letting Go\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eWhen Waiting Feels Immoral\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eBenefit Paradox\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eUnsafe Discharge\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eBig Incision\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eTo Err is To Be a Physician\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eWhen Sensitivity is a Liability\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eWhy Won’t My Patient Act Like a Jerk?\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eWheelchair\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003ePossibility\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eCaring for the caregiver\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eOktoberfest\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eDr Douchebag RW\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eIn defense of cheaper stethoscopes\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eThe appendix: ancient organ for the modern age\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eJudging patients\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eA knock on the door\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003ePaper scrubs\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eThe Ashtray\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eThe patient who wanted nothing\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eCan we write a better story for ourselves?\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eNot an ending\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eOne more thing, writing stories of medicine\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eAcknowledgements\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eNotes\u003c\/li\u003e\u003cli\u003eIndex\u003c\/li\u003eJay Baruch, a practicing emergency room physician, is Professor of Emergency Medicine at Alpert Medical School of Brown University and the author of two award-winning short fiction collections, \u003ci\u003eWhat's Left Out\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eFourteen Stories: Doctors, Patients, and Other Strangers\u003c\/i\u003e.","brand":"The MIT Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302512349413,"sku":"NP9780262548427","price":24.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780262548427.jpg?v=1767742834","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/tornado-of-life-isbn-9780262548427","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}