The only way to know where you are is by where you have just been.

The bottom line: health care reform is about the patient, not about the physician.

She felt the familiar calmness of an emergency, but she understood the falseness of that feeling, now that it was her life at stake.

What treatment in an emergency is administered by ear?

I was taking care of people my age who were dying. The constant feeling, hearing from them, was that life is transient and can end very quickly, so don't postpone your dreams.

He was teaching me how to die, just as he'd taught me how to live.

A beautiful literary collection that tells of today's country doctor, somewhat removed from our romantic black-bag image of days gone by, but still fulfilling an essential need in caring for spread-out populations. At times, with today's advances in technology, medicine in rural America looks very like it does in America's cities, but the variety of practices is enormous. The Country Doctor Revisited captures the trials and tribulations of medicine, but also the satisfaction and the extraordinary rewards that come to those who embrace such a practice.