The Boston Globe
Humanely told stories of lives saved and lost
By Michelle Au |
March 21, 2018
For doctors, there are patients, and stories, that stick with us. They linger in the corners of our minds, stain who we are, shape what we become. Some give hope and perspective, others haunt. All doctors have such tales but not all can tell them this well.
“You Can Stop Humming Now: A Doctor’s Stories of Life, Death, and In Between’’ is a collection of vignettes culled from over a decade of Daniela Lamas’s training in intensive-care medicine, where she learned to care for the sickest of the sick. It casts a steady, unblinking eye on the triumphs, failures, and blind spots of modern medicine: the seemingly miraculous extent of what we can now do for our patients and the crippling disappointment that comes with the realization of what we still cannot.