Melissa Yuan-Innes

This was bland. Like "there was no there there." No substance.

I'm a little concerned that, as this was my feeling for every book I've read on my Droid to date that it's my criticism of the medium, rather than the book. I like REAL books. I like the way pages feel. I like how cheap books are. I like the aesthetics of rows and rows of books in my library. I do NOT like ebooks. I don't like that I can click over without a second thought to something else. I don't like that they need electricity (I'm usually too absent minded to charge anything smaller than my laptop.) I don't like how they feel in my hand. And it's kind of a self-fulfilling prophecy. I'm almost NEVER without a real book, so if I'm reading an eBook it means either a) I finished my book and I still have time to kill, or more likely b) I found myself with time to read and I didn't bring a book, which is usually a result of having a ten or fifteen minute time bubble between activities. So most eBooks I read have to be dirt cheap, have to be short, and have to be frivolous enough that they're worth reading for only five minutes.

As a result, all three eBooks that I've finished have been self-published memoirs of emergency medicine physicians. And they've all read almost exactly the same. This is no exception. And honestly, I think if I'm seriously concerned that the delivery medium was a major factor in my opinion of the book that pretty much clenches the allegation that the book was without true substance.

This feels like someone strung together all of the posts in a mediocre blog. There's just...nothing. She's a perfectionist. Sometimes patients appreciate her. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes they're sick. Sometimes they're not so sick. Sometimes work-life balance is hard. Welcome to Being a Doctor 101. Also, 50% of the download is "samples" of Dr. Yuan-Innes' mystery novel starring a thinly-veiled self-insert character (who shares Dr. Yuan-Innes' hometown, training hospital, medical specialty and ethnicity) and her poetry, which reads like something I wrote in 9th grade.
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medical-doctor, medical-perspective, humor, essays *****

This is not an unbiased review. As a retired RN who has spent years translating Medicalese into patient/family speak I love the humanity revealed with good humor. Most of the incidents related are from before the author went into independent practice but are representative of every Western medical practitioner I have ever worked with. Patients can learn a lot from this short book. I loved it.
Louise Sproul gave an excellent audio performance.… (mehr)