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Tornado of Life: A Doctor's Journey through Constraints and Creativity in the ER Kindle Edition

by Jay Baruch (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 40 ratings
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Stories from the ER: a doctor shows how empathy, creativity, and imagination are the cornerstones of clinical care.

To be an emergency room doctor is to be a professional listener to stories. Each patient presents a story; finding the heart of that story is the doctor’s most critical task. More technology, more tests, and more data won’t work if doctors get the story wrong. When caring for others can feel like venturing into uncharted territory without a map, empathy, creativity, imagination, and thinking like a writer become the cornerstones of clinical care. In Tornado of Life, ER physician Jay Baruch shares these struggles in a series of short, powerful, and affecting essays that invite the reader into stories rich with complexity and messiness.

Patients come to the ER with lives troubled by scales of misfortune that have little to do with disease or injury. ER doctors must be problem-finders before they are problem-solvers. Cheryl, for example, whose story is a chaos narrative of “and this happened, and then that happened, and then, and then and then and then,” tells Baruch she is “stuck in a tornado of life.” What will help her, and what will help Mr. K., who seems like a textbook case of post-combat PTSD but turns out not to be? Baruch describes, among other things, the emergency of loneliness (invoking Chekhov, another doctor-writer); his own (frightening) experience as a patient; the patient who demanded a hug; and emergency medicine during COVID-19. These stories often end without closure or solutions. The patients are discharged into the world. But if they’re lucky, the doctor has listened to their stories as well as treated them.
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  1. Print length
    318 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    The MIT Press
  5. Publication date
    August 30, 2022
  6. File size
    515 KB
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"In this collection of brief, touching essays, an emergency room doctor presents poignant stories about disease and loneliness and argues that medical professionals are “stewards” of their patients’ stories, morally obligated to look beyond data and tests."
—New York Times Book Review

“Uplifting to read…Shows how empathy, creativity and imagination can still be found in acute clinical care…Offers a series of short, powerful and affecting essays that capture the stories of ER patients in all their complexity. The book brings the reader right into the chaos…[Baruch’s] book is a testament to the need for patient stories to be listened to more than ever in our badly overcrowded emergency departments.”
—Irish Times

“[Baruch] has mastered a particular literary form that begins with a clinical scene and then steps back, taking a broader perspective. The trick of his writing is that when he turns to the institutional realities that make the local scene what it is, he manages not to lose the particularities of the people whom he has made vividly present.”
—Professor Arthur Frank, Hastings Center Report

“This book…stands out among the field of books written by physicians…featuring brevity that encapsulates what life is like in the emergency department—blunt, full of life, and unknowns…What sets this book apart from the many others that seek to give insight and glimpses into the clinical world of emergency medicine is the dedication to incorporate philosophy, literature, science, art, and the study of narrative medicine…Richly layered with clinical references, patient stories, narrative medicine, and concepts from various scientific fields and the arts…An excellent read for any clinician at any point in their career.”
—Annals of Emergency Medicine

"ER physician Baruch (What’s Left Out) recounts in this unflinching essay collection the professional challenges he’s encountered, both pre-Covid and from the worst of the pandemic...Baruch has a knack for narrative and writes in a refined prose, and many entries, such as two concerning domestic violence victims who won’t say that they’re in danger, are tough to forget. Fans of Thomas Fisher’s The Emergency: A Year of Healing and Heartbreak in a Chicago ER should give this a look."
—Publishers Weekly

"Baruch (Fourteen Stories: Doctors, Patients, and Other Strangers), an emergency room physician and author of two award-winning short story collections, writes a book of essays about his experiences in the ER and his philosophy of patient care. The book showcases his belief that the power of story is just as important to doctors as it is to patients. However, Baruch writes, chronic underfunding and understaffing make it difficult for doctors to make the time to hear patients’ stories, to read between the lines. Written during the pandemic, the book includes a couple of essays about working with COVID patients, but COVID is not the full focus. This is not an overtly political book about the state of the health system; it is an homage to the people Baruch has treated, failed, and helped. His ability to tell a story is what makes it so compelling. Tender, thoughtful... it focuses on a doctor doing his best to truly hear patients, while constantly questioning whether his efforts are enough. Beautifully written with a different take on life, this is recommended for any collection."
—Library Journal

"A rich collection of stories from years of working as an ER doctor...Baruch’s point is not simply to reaffirm what many doctor-writers and medical humanities programs have now made clear—that story making is an essential part of clinical medicine. His point is that story making is also a morally, spiritually, and medically relevant part of clinical responsibility. It is a precarious business, riddled with pitfalls, that needs to be approached with attentiveness and skill...With admirable humility, Baruch avoids pontificating about what his professional colleagues should do. Instead he reflects openheartedly on what he has learned from patients, from his own mistakes, and from surprising epiphanies that come from the way a patient worded a question, or from a telling metaphor, or from an information gap that opened a new path of inquiry.”
 —The Christian Century
 
“Tornado of Life is a tour de force. It features patient narratives, sketches of the ER, self-portraits of [Baruch’s] development as a provider throughout [his] career, and [his] reflective and analytical essays on the multidirectional relationships between narrative and healthcare. It’s a many-faceted collection.”
—Synapsis Journal

"This book of essays by Jay Baruch is so good I wanted to underline *everything.*"
—Dr. Suzanne Koven, Primary care physician and Writer in Residence at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and author ofLetter to a Young Female Physician

"This is THE BEST medical autoethnography/ memoir that I have read, no question. It addresses all the issues that I am constantly raising with medical students. It is so inspiring, thank you for this gift - a rare gem!"
—Prof. Alan Bleakley, Emeritus Professor of Medical Education and Medical Humanities , Plymouth Peninsula School of Medicine, University of Plymouth

"Doctor Jay Baruch’s Tornado Of Life: A Doctor’s Journey Through Constraints and Creativity in the ER takes a deep dive into the complicated world of medical care as professionals deal with not only the physical health of their subjects but also social, emotional, and substance abuse issues, sometimes all at the same time. As professor of emergency medicine at Brown University’s Warren Alpert Medical School, Baruch is often caught up in this whirlwind as he and his team struggle to find the best solution for each patient in their care."
—Providence Monthly

Review

"Through stories that are often tender, sometimes chaotic, and always revealing, Jay Baruch beautifully conveys the messy art of doctoring. Read Tornado of Life to understand the emergency room in all its glory—warts and all."
—Sandeep Jauhar, author of Intern: A Doctor's Initiation

"A book that, with huge empathy and compassion, builds a bridge between doctor and patient, writer and reader. Engaging and thoughtful."
— Sinéad Gleeson, author of Constellations

"Among the vast literature of doctors writing about their profession, Dr. Jay Baruch is a unique talent, a spellbinding storyteller and an expert and experienced diagnostician. With literary references and poetic flare, Tornado of Life reveals the whirlwind of emotions gusting through emergency rooms. Rarely does a physician admit his own vulnerabilities and uncertainties in a way that illuminates the true art of his healing."
—Randi Hutter Epstein, Writer in Residence Yale School of Medicine, and author of Aroused: The History of Hormones and How They Control Just About Everything

“This is THE BEST medical autoethnography/ memoir that I have read, no question. It addresses all the issues that I am constantly raising with medical students. It is so inspiring, thank you for this gift - a rare gem!”
—Alan Bleakley, Emeritus Professor of Medical Education and Medical Humanities, Plymouth Peninsula School of Medicine, University of Plymouth --This text refers to the hardcover edition.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B09MT35LCR
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ The MIT Press (August 30, 2022)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 30, 2022
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 515 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 318 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 40 ratings

About the author

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Jay Baruch

Jay Baruch

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Jay Baruch is a Professor of Emergency Medicine at Alpert Medical School of Brown University, where he directs the Medical Humanities and Bioethics Scholarly Concentration. His work as an ER doctor, a writer of fiction and essays, and medical educator and keynote speaker, share an appetite for messiness and problem finding. He believes we should never be afraid to take risks, to think differently, and be more creative, especially when we feel stuck. He also thinks stories will always be our most innovative technology, followed by coffee and dark chocolate.

His upcoming book of non-fiction, narrative essays: Tornado of Life: A Doctor's Journey through Constraints and Creativity in the ER (MIT Press, fall 2022), takes the reader into small but challenging experiences in the ER that receive less attention. We move from story to story, one emotional place after another, feel the weight of searching for answers when we haven't figured out the questions.

Jay Baruch is also the author of two award-winning short fiction collections, "What's Left Out" (Kent State University Press, 2015) and "Fourteen Stories: Doctors, Patients, and Other Strangers" (Kent State University Press, 2007).

His academic work emerged out of necessity. When faced with uncertainty and ambiguity in the ER, he leaned on creative writing skills to help understand patients' stories. He also considers teaching a creative conversation with people with different expertise and ways of looking at the world. His interdisciplinary collaborators have included brilliant museum educators, designers, and artists.

His writing has appeared in numerous print and online medical and literary journals and lay media outlets, including the STAT, Boston Globe, WBUR Cognoscenti, New England Journal of Medicine, Academic Medicine, KevinMD, and others.

He's been a Director-at-Large, American Society for Bioethics and Humanities; the medical humanities section chair for the American College of Emergency Physicians; and faculty fellow at the Cogut Institute for the Humanities at Brown University. In addition, he received the inaugural Society for Academic Emergency Medicine Gold Humanism Award.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
40 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

JLH
5.0 out of 5 stars Thinking Differently in Medicine - A Must Read
Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2022
Verified Purchase
Tornado of Life is a work of nonfiction about the value of story and creativity in the practice of medicine. “The ability to work with stories is, and will continue to be, the most cost effective and critical navigation instrument in medical care. The best technology is of little use if we get the story wrong.” My favorite entry is the title piece, Tornado of Life, it is in fact my favorite story from all of his work combined over the years. Layered and complexed, a true reflection of what healthcare providers encounter when they try to tug at a thread of patient’s story who is in crisis.
This book is a wonderful read from a talented author and it deserves your time. The stories will resonate for years to come.
It is based on Dr. Baruch’s thirty plus years as an Emergency Physician and the challenges that face both patients and healthcare providers. Written for both those in the medical profession and the layperson, it encourages all of us to look at healthcare through the lens of patient narrative. “There’s an unfathomable gravity to the ER space, where lives in crisis pass through and some depart forever. We can’t forget the word ‘patient’ is derived from the Latin patiens, which means ‘to suffer’. Whether it’s failing bodies, bad choices, the fear of losing control, or morphing identities, suffering is a deeply personal matter. Sometimes, it’s the story that runs beneath or in between the stories being told, undetected by beeping monitors.”
Highly recommend.
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amachinist
4.0 out of 5 stars Read this STAT!
Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2022
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The author has been an emergency room physician for thirty years. This book is a collection of essays, some of which have been published elsewhere, about his experiences in the ER and his ruminations about American healthcare today. He provides the reader with a front row seat to the immediacy of urgent care. All is not well in the ER: staff is stressed, medical supplies are limited especially during COVID, insufficient beds exist to meet the needs of alcoholics, the homeless, drug addicts, gun violence victims, the chronically ill elderly, domestic abuse victims and accidents of every variety. Baruch tries to be a patient and focused listener to the narratives of his patients, but sometimes his patience wears thin. Too many are repeat ER visitors or reject sound medical advice like getting the Covid vaccine. A safety valve for Baruch's frustrations is his writing. He aspires to be a short story writer like Anton Chekhov, but he isn't quite there yet. This book is a good first step.
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fenx1200
3.0 out of 5 stars Geared towards feelings instead of interesting diagnostics.
Reviewed in the United States on September 17, 2022
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Many years ago I used to get Discover magazine and every issue had a story about a doctor In the ER treating a patient with baffling symptoms. The article would lead you through the process of the doctor's analysis and treatment to solve the case. It was truly interesting. This book is more about the feelings of the doctor and the patients, something that I would refer to as the intrinsic value of the medical profession today. I was expecting the same theme as the the Discover magazine's interesting articles. I was very disappointed by this book because of the path it took, feelings versus diagnosis. The writing style never fully engaged me and I found it difficult to read. Overall, just a general interpretation of the life of an ER doctor, directing more towards human feelings than clinical diagnosis.
3 people found this helpful
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A simon
5.0 out of 5 stars Unique and Exquisite
Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2022
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Anyone who has ever been a patient has probably wondered about the inner thoughts and feelings of the consulting physician. We may wonder how the physician determines the appropriate tests and emergency procedures that can spell life or death, or how the physician reacts to the patient’s presentation of symptoms and proposed treatment? Mostly, we may not realize how the physician’s experience and education may be influenced by the patient’s personality and life circumstances.
In this unique and powerful book, Dr. Jay Baruch brings his long-time experience as an emergency-room physician and professor, as well as his consummate talents as an author, into these provocative essays, each framed around the cases of former patients, including himself. We wonder at his incisive self-analysis, his modest and thorough reasoning. This intelligent and sensitive human is ever attuned to the needs of his patients and their backgrounds. As an expert practitioner of “the narrative,” he focuses on his patients’ life stories and how they fit into his assessment of their illnesses. We read about his patients, often those who he still remembers after many years, and appreciate the lessons he learned as a treating physician and passed on to those lucky enough to study with him. His compassion and honesty are foremost in these exquisitely crafted stories—a must for patients, as well as healthcare workers and medical students.
2 people found this helpful
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Jamie Greenman
5.0 out of 5 stars You have to read this
Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2023
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During residency, I often avoided reading narrative medicine. It was just too much. But I've got to say I wish I had had this book then to prepare me for what was to come. The chapter on emergency physicians as "ambassador to nightmares" in Tornado of Life got into my bones.
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Andreas
5.0 out of 5 stars Instructive and Inspiring
Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2022
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I just finished Dr. Baruch’s book and could not put it down. I am overwhelmed with his humanity, thoughtfulness, and compassion. As a physician for more than fifty years, I identified with many of the situations he described. I wish I had somebody like him in medical school or in my early career. Unfortunately, such people are very few and we have to learn some of these lessons ourselves and over many years. All the stories were instructive and inspiring, but the “Appendix” story resonated strongly in my thoughts. This book should be a must for any physician, but especially for medical students.
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