Download PDF My Own Country: A Doctor's Story of a Town and Its People in the Age of Aids
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My Own Country: A Doctor's Story of a Town and Its People in the Age of Aids
Download PDF My Own Country: A Doctor's Story of a Town and Its People in the Age of Aids
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From Publishers Weekly
When infectious-disease specialist Verghese, the Ethiopian-born son of Indian schoolteachers, emigrated to the U.S. and settled in Johnson City, Tenn., in the mid-1980s, he finally felt at peace "in my own country" at last. But his work at the Johnson City Medical Center soon led him into a shadow world of Bible-belt AIDS, often without the support of his colleagues. Verghese discovered a local gay community that was then untested for the HIV virus. If revealed, these people's closeted relationships would have, writes Verghese, made them stand out "like Martians." The author tells the stories of several patients, including the gay man who must reconcile with his father and the "innocent" man who has contracted AIDS through a contaminated blood transfusion but who, concerned about society's response to his plight, keeps his disease a secret even though he believes that "this thing, this virus, is from hell, from the devil himself." Verghese reveals his own confusions about homosexuality, immigrant identity and his wife's fears about his health. Writing with an outsider's empathy and insight, casting his chronicle in graceful prose, he offers a memorable tale that both captures and transcends time and place. Paperback rights to Vintage; author tour. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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From Library Journal
In fall 1985 Verghese--who was born in Ethiopia of Indian parents--returned with his wife and newborn son to Johnson City, Tennessee, where he had done his internship and residence. As he watched AIDS infect the small town, he and the community learned many things from one another, including the power of compassion. An AIDS expert who initially had no patients, Verghese describes meeting gay men and then eventually others struggling with this new disease. Verghese's patients include a factory worker confronting her husband's AIDS, bisexuality, and her own HIV status and a religious couple infected via a blood transfusion attempting to keep their disease secret from their church and their children. This novelistic account, occasionally overly detailed, provides a heartfelt perspective on the American response to the spread of AIDS. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/94.- James E. Van Buskirk, San Francisco P . L .Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Product details
Hardcover: 352 pages
Publisher: Simon & Schuster (May 10, 1994)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0671785141
ISBN-13: 978-0671785147
Product Dimensions:
6.5 x 1 x 9.8 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.5 out of 5 stars
252 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#627,745 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Abraham Verghese is a physician, a specialist in internal medicine and infectious diseases. His medical training was in Ethiopia and India. He came to the United States as an FMG (foreign medical graduate). After finishing his residency and a fellowship, he settled in Johnson City, Tennessee in 1985. Because of his work in Boston, he was the most knowledgeable doctor in the Johnson City area about AIDS, but AIDS was not yet present when he arrived. Four years later, when he left Johnson City, there had been dozens of deaths from AIDS and he had over eighty HIV-infected persons under his care. Johnson City, with its 50,000 residents, had a hundred-fold more cases than the CDC would have predicted for it. MY OWN COUNTRY is Verghese's account of his four years in Johnson City, Tennessee, fighting an ever-mushrooming battle with AIDS and coming to love a corner of Appalachia.Two subjects predominate. One, of course, is AIDS. The book is studded with case studies, as Verghese sees a wide array of the insidious ways in which AIDS manifests itself and kills. Most of his patients had obtained HIV elsewhere and had moved back to the Johnson City area once they became ill. Acquisition for most was via unprotected homosexual contact, but for a few it was through tainted blood or plasma or via heterosexual intercourse. The disease was hellish in and of itself, but often the social ripple effects were also dreadful -- from contempt and rejection on the part of family members and community, to refusals to treat by doctors and dentists, to boycotting by undertakers. As Verghese writes, "I was improvising constantly to deal with the moral, ethical and social subtleties that were so much a part of this disease."The second principal subject involves medical practice in general in this country. When Verghese chose to specialize in infectious diseases, he relegated himself to second-tier status among his physician colleagues, especially financially. Medicine was transforming itself into a get-rich business, and the big money was in conducting processes and performing procedures, as opposed to diagnosing patients and being their primary care physician. As Verghese came to realize, proper treatment often required a holistic approach, which in turn required an understanding of the dynamics of the patient's relationships with family, friends, and community. In the thirty years since, the economics of medicine has gotten more out-of-control, and the quality of medical care has decreased. Even in 1985, many of the doctors and medical staff in rural hospitals and in urban public hospitals were foreign-trained, working in the U.S. with visas. If the U.S. continues to insulate itself from the world at large, how will these roles be filled in the future?Verghese, however, does not harp on these and other social/medical policy issues or become preachy. Foremost, MY OWN COUNTRY contains umpteen different tales of human suffering and endurance, surprisingly often heroic and dignified in nature. For every incident of contempt and rejection, there is one of care and compassion. Two heroes in particular stand out -- Essie Vines, who cared and advocated for her brother Gordon, and Fred Goodson, who did likewise for his partner Otis Jackson and also was the principal organizer and force behind the local AIDS-support group. Anecdotally, there are a handful of intriguing "human interest" stories, such as "John Doe", a debilitated old man with a stroke, diabetes and pneumonia who had been left at the emergency room entrance while the family went to "park the car" and were never seen again; or Vickie McCray, who got HIV from her husband, who unbeknownst to her often had had sex with a male friend from his youth and then went on to give the virus to Vickie's sister as well (Vickie told Verghese that "ever since I found out he has AIDS, I've been feeling too sorry for him to be angry with him. No one deserves to be sick lik'at. No one deserves to lose their mind lik'at.").MY OWN COUNTRY is not a perfect book. At times, Verghese goes too far down rabbit trails of marginal relevancy (especially when he describes geography and the routes from one place to another); the book is a tad manipulative; occasionally Verghese, although a truly remarkable person, comes across as a little holier-than-thou; and the sentimental reference to "my own country" seems a wee bit hypocritical given that Verghese left the Johnson City area after four years, never to live there again.That said, and even though the book now is over twenty years old, MY OWN COUNTRY deserves to be read. It is interesting throughout, it is very readable, and reading it will surely broaden almost everyone's horizons of humanity.
The thought of me reading and being transfixed by a book about the Aids Epidemic in rural Kentucky in the 1980's as told by a transplanted Indian doctor seemed pretty remote. But as I heard each of these patient's heartbreaking stories and how this internist tries to humanly treat their health concerns with compassion and love, I couldn't stop reading. Abraham Verghese paints a vivid literal picture of life in rural Kentucky and the personal struggles of the patients and the doctor who feels compelled to treat them when other medical professionals shun them. These deeply personal tragic stories will bring you to tears and touch your heart. I highly recommend this book and Verghese's other best seller "Cutting for Stone".
In My Own Country is an autobiographical narrative of Dr. Abraham Verghese and his work as an infectious disease physician in rural Tennessee during the early years of the HIV pandemic. Verghese is a powerful writer, and his rendering of the AIDS crisis immortalizes the victims of the AIDS crisis in Johnson City. More than that, Verghese offers a rare perspective of the time—he starts out his story as little more than an outsider stumbling into an interesting medical phenomenon. He was not gay, had little connection with gay community, and was neither an advocate nor an enemy of gay men. Yet, over the course of the novel we see how their stories begin to envelope him. At first Verghese seems like an interested outsider, and we wonder if his fascination is purely medical. But when the young men come to him he learns their names, and he asks for their stories. Perhaps because he is a real foreigner in a place that has made them to feel foreign too, they open up to him. Giving his patients the opportunity to speak is one of the few medicines Verghese has. Medically speaking, he offers little in terms of real therapy. He becomes a doctor specializing in palliative care.Over the course of the novel, Dr. Verghese shows his readers the immense role a physician can play in the lives of patients. His patients are dying. They are afraid. There is little he can do to ease these physical pains. But he is there for them. And it is clear that many of them feel a true patient-physician bond with him as he helps them navigate their journey from life to death. This isn’t an easy process for the patients dying of AIDS, or for Dr. Verghese.As we see a community form around his perseverance to treat his patients with dignity, we also see how his job begins to overtake his life. As Verghese becomes indispensible to his patients, his relationship with his wife and family deteriorates. We feel for the doctor as he misses important moments in his personal life. We can feel how he is pulled in different directions. He needs to choose between his patients and his family. We see how he chooses his patients. By the end of the novel, it is clear that Dr. Verghese is burned out. His marriage is strained and he has nightmares about the infection that consumes his working hours. We end the book with the same uncertainty that he feels. It turns out that the doctor’s calling has drained his spirit.The book ends with Dr. Verghese making an important discovery about the pattern of AIDS in rural areas, and deciding to leave Johnson city for somewhere new and more detached. It is a conclusion that fits the topic. This book is not just about a viral pandemic. It does a good job of detailing HIV before treatments, but it’s mostly about the evolution of an idealistic physician. Read this book if you’d like to understand how incurable diseases affect both patients and their healthcare providers. You’ll get a glimpse into the hidden and sometimes heart-wrenching world of doctor-patient relationships.
A unique picture of the AIDS epidemic in the rural south. Intimate and detailed portraits of each person, their different circumstances and how it affected their family and friends. Poignant and personal. Verghese brings the reader with him as he becomes immersed in the lives and personal devastation unleashed by this terminal and vicious disease. Finally, he lets us see the problems and frustrations in his own family by his overwhelming emotional ties with his patients and the hours upon hours required of him to adequately care for them as well as the affects on his family.
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