My Own Country: A Doctor's Story, Volume 496

Abraham Verghese

Vintage Books, 1995 - Biography & Autobiography - 432 pages

Nestled in the Smoky Mountains of eastern Tennessee, the town of Johnson City had always seemed exempt from the anxieties of modern American life. But when the local hospital treated its first AIDS patient, a crisis that had once seemed an “urban problem” had arrived in the town to stay.

Working in Johnson City was Abraham Verghese, a young Indian doctor specializing in infectious diseases. Dr. Verghese became by necessity the local AIDS expert, soon besieged by a shocking number of male and female patients whose stories came to occupy his mind, and even take over his life. Verghese brought a singular perspective to Johnson City: as a doctor unique in his abilities; as an outsider who could talk to people suspicious of local practitioners; above all, as a writer of grace and compassion who saw that what was happening in this conservative community was both a medical and a spiritual emergency.

Out of his experience comes a startling but ultimately uplifting portrait of the American heartland as it confronts—and surmounts—its deepest prejudices and fears.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - chasidar - LibraryThing

I loved Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone and found this non-fiction description of his experiences as an infectious disease doctor in a small town during the dawn of the AIDS crisis fascinating.

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - larryerick - LibraryThing

I lot of folks I know avoid nonfiction books like the plague. I suspect they read one too many dry history books in school and think all nonfiction is BORING. To that I always offer that they try a ...

Contents

• Section 1: 5
• Section 2: 34
• Section 3: 47
• Section 4: 73
• Section 5: 107
• Section 6: 128
• Section 7: 144
• Section 8: 154
• Section 9: 176
• Section 10: 200
• Section 11: 208
• Section 12: 220
• Section 13: 229
• Section 14: 232
• Section 15: 255
• Section 16: 275
• Section 17: 299
• Section 18: 311
• Section 19: 322
• Section 20: 332
• Section 21: 343
• Section 22: 351
• Section 23: 356
• Section 24: 363
• Section 25: 373
• Section 26: 380
• Section 27: 391
• Section 28: 404
• Section 29: 415
• Section 30: 425
• Section 31: 431

About the author

Abraham Verghese is Professor and Senior Associate Chair for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He was the founding director of the Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, where he is now an adjunct professor. He is the author of My Own Country, a 1994 NBCC Finalist and a Time Best Book of the Year, and The Tennis Partner, a New York Times Notable Book. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, he has published essays and short stories that have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, Granta, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. He lives in Palo Alto, California.

Bibliographic information

• Title: My Own Country: A Doctor's Story, Volume 496; My Own Country: A Doctor's Story, Abraham Verghese
• Author: Abraham Verghese
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Vintage Books, 1995
• ISBN: 0679752927, 9780679752929
• Length: 432 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / Medical (incl. Patients); Biography & Autobiography / Personal Memoirs; Health & Fitness / Diseases / AIDS & HIV; Medical / Physicians