God's Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine Paperback – April 2, 2013 Author: Visit Amazon's Victoria Sweet Page | Language: English | ISBN:
1594486549 | Format: PDF, EPUB
God's Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine – April 2, 2013 Download God's Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine Paperback – April 2, 2013 from with Mediafire Link Download Link
Review
A Barnes & Noble and San Francisco Chronicle Best Nonfiction Book of 2012
“Transcendent… readable chapters go down like restorative sips of cool water, and its hard-core subversion cheers like a shot of gin… God’s Hotel [is] a tour de force… Others have written about the relationship between time and medical care with similar eloquence and urgency, but the centuries of perspective that Dr. Sweet brings infuse the point with unforgettable clarity.” –The New York Times
“A radical and inspiring alternative vision of caring for the sick.” –Vanity Fair
“Engaging… You might not expect a book about San Francisco's most downtrodden patients to be a page-turner, but it is. With its colorful cast of characters battling the tide of history, God's Hotel is a remarkable journey into the essence of medicine.” –San Francisco Chronicle
"Victoria Sweet writes beautifully about the enormous richness of life at Laguna Honda, the chronic [care] hospital where she has spent the last twenty years, and the intense sense of place and community that binds patients and staff there. Such community in the medical world is vanishingly rare now, and Laguna Honda may be the last of its kind… God's Hotel is a most important book which raises fundamental questions about the nature of medicine in our time. It should be required reading for anyone interested in the 'business' of healthcare – and especially those interested in the humanity of healthcare." –Oliver Sacks, M.D. author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and The Mind's Eye
“A beautifully written and illuminating book… [Sweet’s] metaphors are poetic and hint at the mystical, but then she pulls back with the educated eye of a scientist… For both the agnostic and the believer, Sweet pinpoints the element of medicine that makes it a calling rather than a job: the unique and sustaining love that is sparked between a doctor and patient.” –Jerome Groopman, The New York Review of Books
"Remarkable… [Sweet] would appreciate that it took time for me to journey to and through her work since that may be one of the many compelling messages she so eloquently, yet simply by storytelling, conveys… permitting ‘tincture of time’ to also do its job." –The Huffington Post
"Sweet's warm, anecdotal style shines… The author's compelling argument for Laguna Honda's philosophy of 'slow medicine' will make readers contemplate if perhaps the body should be viewed more as a garden to be tended rather than a machine to be fixed." –Kirkus (reviewed as a Best Book of 2012)
“Captivating… with this humane and thoughtful work, Sweet joins physician-authors such as Oliver Sacks, Jerome Groopman and Abraham Verghese.” –The Dallas Morning News
“[A] watershed book ...Vital, exquisitely written, and spectacularly multidimensional, Sweet’s clinically exacting, psychologically discerning, practical, spiritual, and tenderly funny anecdotal chronicle steers the politicized debate over health care back to medicine and compassion. –Booklist (starred review)
“Visionary… thoroughly subversive in all the best ways… This book’s lessons and conclusions should challenge doctors, nurses, hospital administrators, and policy makers to stop and rethink their core beliefs.” –Journal of Health Affairs
“A remarkable, poignant portrait of a committed physician on a quest to understand the heart, as well as the art, of medicine… A marvelous, arresting read.” –Library Journal (starred review)
“[Our] healthcare system might function a lot better if every single American citizen, healthcare professional, politician and legislator would read Victoria Sweet’s insightful, beautifully written and moving book.” –Bookpage
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
About the Author
Victoria Sweet has been a physician at San Francisco’s Laguna Honda Hospital for more than twenty years. Anassociate clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, she is also a prize-winning historian with a Ph.D. in history and social medicine.
Direct download links available for God's Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine – April 2, 2013
- Paperback: 432 pages
- Publisher: Riverhead Trade; Reprint edition (April 2, 2013)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1594486549
- ISBN-13: 978-1594486548
- Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 1 inches
- Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,996 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3 in Books > Textbooks > Medicine & Health Sciences > Medicine > Special Topics > Essays
- #22 in Books > Textbooks > Medicine & Health Sciences > Medicine > General
- #33 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Professionals & Academics > Medical
"God's Hotel" is the true story of an internal medicine physician and her experiences at Laguna Honda Hospital, a place where doctors aren't constrained by the economic stressors of practicing modern medicine. Patients often stayed for months at a time, as their medical problems were addressed by looking at all facets of their being, not just lab results or x-rays. Her book describes in wonderful detail the concept of "slow medicine," where doctors and nurses write their chart notes longhand and have the time to review all aspects of their patients' health, without worrying about the three patients in exam rooms still waiting to see them. Whereas current medical administrators may consider this idea archaic and unrealistic, the stories of the many patients who benefitted from this methodical, holistic approach to treating patients are truly moving and affecting.
Unfortunately, Laguna Honda eventually succumbs to the pressures of modern medicine, as "Heath Care Efficiency Experts" are hired to come in and make the place more profitable and efficient. While they help make the hospital shinier and more modern, the care of the patients suffers, and this old-fashioned, loving approach to practicing medicine finally disappears altogether. Dr. Sweet writes about these changes in a sobering tone, yet it's a testament to her writing skills that the reader is always infused with hope.
This past year has been great for fans of this medical memoirs, so if you like this book I'd recommend two others that would serve as great companions.
In Stitches is an immensely entertaining read about one doctor's journey through medical school.
It almost always annoys me when someone who isn't a professional writer produces a great book, but Victoria Sweet has written the best non-fiction book I've read this year and all I wanted to do when I finished reading it was to meet her and congratulate her and ask her a lot of questions.
So I did.
Something happened at the start of that conversation that made me realize why her book dazzled me --- the qualities that make her a great doctor are the same qualities that make her book so powerful, original and relevant.
She heard me. She paid attention. She made me her patient.
Before I asked my first question, I mentioned a health issue. When she returned to San Francisco, she wrote me: "Now that you've let me know you haven't been feeling well, you need to make sure to let me know that/when you are feeling better and the meds are kicking in. Otherwise, I worry."
You want a doctor who has infinite time for you? Who cares --- as a person --- how you fare? Who uses not just the tools of current medicine but learns Latin so she can scour texts a thousand years old to learn the wisdom of pre-modern medicine?
For 20 years, to get that kind of doctor, you went to Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco.
To an almshouse --- a facility that provides medical and spiritual care to the poorest of the poor.
For free.
"God's Hotel" --- the term comes from the Hôtel-Dieu, the French charity hospitals of the Middle Ages --- is four books in one.
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