A Country Doctor's Chronicle: Further Tales from the North Woods - Hardcover

MacDonald M.D., Roger A.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0873515099 ISBN 13: 9780873515092

Publisher: Borealis Books, 2004

Synopsis

House calls. Flu epidemics. Terminal illnesses. Coroner duties. Fishhook incidents. For more than three decades, Roger A. MacDonald served the people of Minnesota's north woods as a family practitioner and jack-of-all-trades, even responding to the occasional barn call for ailing animals. In this new collection of stories, MacDonald takes readers on another round of house calls, office visits, and emergency summons.

His remote practice saw patients of every age and type, from a local child with a penchant for putting things up his nose to a dedicated church pianist with untreatable cancer, from a teenager with unexplained seizures to a vacationing Mafioso recovering from a heart attack. MacDonald offers tales of patients, colleagues, and neighbors, probing their very human responses to medical dilemmas and sharing humorous and touching episodes in equal portions. A Country Doctor's Chronicle is a charming collection of vignettes—some hopeful, some heartbreaking—that offer a unique look at a bygone era of twentieth-century rural America.

About this title

About the Author:

Roger A. MacDonald, M.D., was a rural physician from 1948 to 1980, when he became associate director of the Rural Physician Associate Program at the University of Minnesota Medical School. His first story collection, A Country Doctor's Casebook, was published in 2001. Now retired, he divides his time between Grand Marais, Minnesota, and La Verne, California.

Review:

"This book is a warm and vivid recreation of the world of medicine before the avalanche of technology that has served, among other things, to distance a doctor from the patients. It takes the reader back to the time when a physician was an adjunct to his five senses and diagnosis was as much an art as a science." -- Richard Selzer, surgeon and author of The Doctor Stories and Letters to a Young DoctorPraise for Roger MacDonald's first collection, A Country Doctor's Casebook--"Beautiful, humorous, and lucidly written, A Country Doctor's Casebook is a heartwarming and sometimes heartbreaking treasure of American rural medical history. For those who may have become disenchanted about the craft of medicine, here the enchantment returns." Pierre Delattre, author of Woman on the Cross, Episodes, and Tales of a Dalai Lama "This pioneer physician's account of medicine, life, and death in the north of northern Minnesota is suffused by humanitarian warmth and humor. We all are there: Native Americans and immigrants, our lives beset by accidents and illness, and above all the love and dedication making us who we are, helped by our own Galen. A great read."Robert Treuer, author of The Tree Farm: Replanting a Life "A Country Doctor's Casebook is a delight--wonderfully written with a wry sense of humor. These stories ring true: compassionate, gentle, loving portraits of people for whom Dr. MacDonald cared deeply."David Hilfiker, md, author of Healing the Wounds: A Physician Looks at His Work and Not All of Us Are Saints: A Doctor?s Journey with the Poor

About this edition

• Publisher: Borealis Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0873515099
• ISBN 13: 9780873515092
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208