Doctor Tales: Sketches of the Transformation of American Medicine in the Twentieth Century

Stories about American healthcare have been told in print on film on television and radio and in every form imaginable. The story of American healthcare however has never been told in quite the same way as in Dr. Blair Beebes Doctor Tales. Through lyrical and compelling narrative Dr. Beebe uses fourteen tales to tell his story of how our healthcare structure evolved to become the most advanced and problematic system in the world. Beginning with the viewpoint of an impressionable twenty-one-year-old first-year medical student he continues with numerous patient encounters in hospital settings and ends with a fictional communitys response to an avian influenza epidemic transposed from a real outbreak in the Far East. Doctor Tales draws from the lives of real doctors nurses and patients to show the changes that have occurred during the second half of the twentieth century that have led to spectacular new treatments and equally stunning shortfalls in healthcare.