Center for Bioethics Fellow Jay Baruch MD '02, recalls impatient patient who pulled her own breathing tube (and lived to tell about it) in his new book, Tornado of Life: a Doctor's Journey Through Constraints and Creativity in the ER. He tells the story in an excerpt, published in The Harvard Gazette.
In another excerpt, published in LitHub, Baruch describes the value of “not-knowing” in the practice of medicine.
Baruch's debut essay collection chronicles true stories from his 30-plus years of clinical practice in the emergency room. The New York Times Book Review says of the book, "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."