Battles of Life and Death [Paperback]

David Hellerstein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1987

A collection of essays about medical training, real life stories recounted with emotionally compelling style and humor.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Psychiatrist and freelance journalist Hellerstein, son of a medical family, vividly and with considerable literary flair portrays the patients he treated during the stages of his internshipsurgery, neurology, etc.and his residency in psychiatry, which he chose as a specialty because "facts give way to feelings." The author, a graduate of Stanford University Medical School, leaves unnamed his training hospitals. His ingrained faith in medicine was shaken by seeing cases in which patients died from side effects of treatments intended to cure them, and by his realization that, despite modern technology, on occasion illnesses could not be diagnosed until after death. Other hopeless cases, he notes, though correctly diagnosed, foiled the efforts of even the most skillful doctors. Almost unbearable are his accounts of burn victimsone of the most effective chapters in this story of the making of a physician. Literary Guild alternate.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Battles of Life and Death is a unique, beautifully written account of the making of a doctor. In place of the conventional studio portrait of a heroic, miracle-working wizard, David Hellerstein gives us candid pictures of a human being forced to confront, hour after hour, his own weakness and mortality in the weakness and mortality of others. He records, with an honesty that musth humble the reader, his occasional evasions and failures of nerve in the face of those confrontations and the aprtial nature of the victories he wins. Battles of Life and Death is a remarkable document--dramatic, moving and true. -- Tobias Wolff, author of Back in the World

Emotionally riveting...the writing is taut, accurate and unsentimental. And entertaining as well. -- Newsday

Battles of Life and Death is a wonderful book. The excitement, anguish, and joy of attending the sick are fully transmitted. The pace is fast, the style dramatic. David Hellerstein is a highly talented writer. -- Richard Selzer, author of Mortal Lessons

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 3 pages
• Publisher: Warner Books (February 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446384224
• ISBN-13: 978-0446384223
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,007,645 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Terrible and misleading title, May 6, 2008

By 

kalanamak (Pacific NW) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Battles of Life and Death (Paperback)

Most of the stories have a psychiatric slant, and are written honestly, without flip, hip, and cool comments currently in vogue. More about the experience of getting to know medicine rather than about David Hellerstein and his "feelings" about it, how tired he is, how overwhelmed, etc.

Good enough to read 2 or 3 times.