God's hotel : a doctor, a hospital, and a pilgrimage to the heart of medicine / Victoria Sweet.
"San Francisco's Laguna Honda Hospital is the last almshouse in the country, a descendant of the Hotel-Dieu (God's Hotel) that cared for the sick in the Middle Ages. Ballet dancers and rock musicians, professors and thieves--"anyone who had fallen, or, often, leapt, onto hard times" and needed extended medical care-ended up here. So did Victoria Sweet, who came for two months and stayed for twenty years. Laguna Honda, lower tech but human paced, gave Sweet the opportunity to practice a kind of attentive medicine that has almost vanished. Gradually, the place transformed the way she understood her work. Alongside the modern view of the body as a machine to be fixed, her extraordinary patients evoked an older idea, of the body as a garden to be tended. God's Hotel tells their story and the story of the hospital itself, which, as efficiency experts, politicians, and architects descended, determined to turn it into a modern "health care facility," revealed its own surprising truths about the essence, cost, and value of caring for body and soul"--Provided by publisher.
"Choosing service in the last remaining almshouse in America, and tracing our understanding of medicine back to its medieval roots, a physician uncovers lost lessons in the care of body and soul"--Provided by publisher.
Record details
- ISBN: 9781594488436 (hardback)
- ISBN: 1594488436 (hardback)
- Physical Description: 372 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
- Publisher: New York : Riverhead Books, 2012.
Content descriptions
Bibliography, etc. Note: | Includes bibliographical references. |
Formatted Contents Note: | First years -- The love of her life -- The visit of Dee and Tee, health-care efficiency experts -- The miraculous healing of Terry Becker -- Slow medicine -- Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet, and Dr. Merryman -- Dancing to the tune of Glen Miller -- Wedding at Cana -- How I fell in love -- It's a wonderful country -- Recalled to life -- The spirit of God's hotel. |
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Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Status | Due Date | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Burlington Public Library | 610.92 SWEET 2012 | 39851001113753 | Non-fiction | Copy hold | Available | - |
Electronic resources
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