Rate this book

God's Hotel: A Doctor, A Hospital, And A Pilgrimage To The Heart Of Medicine (2012)

by Victoria Sweet(Favorite Author)

4.07 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1594488436 (ISBN13: 9781594488436)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Riverhead Hardcover

review 1: Dr Victoria Sweet worked for more than 20 years at San Francisco's Laguna Honda Hospital, the last almshouse in the country and a descendant of the Hotel-Dieu (God's Hotel) that cared for the sick in the Middle Ages. In this very readable book, she explores the contributions that an older idea of medicine can make to today's hospitals and health care in general. Among other things, I discovered some surprising insights into the real-life "costs" of today's supposedly more efficient and effective practices. The subtitle points to "God's Hotel" as "a pilgrimage to the heart of medicine," and I found it to be so. I recommend this book to anybody interested in the state of one's own health and/or health care in the United States.
review 2: I loved this book. It's ... moreeven better if you've lived in San Francisco for a while (as I have) but it's good for anyone. I thought Dr. Sweet was a very talented writer, and her long sentences never confused or bothered me in the slightest. My only criticism is that I wish she had been a little more clear on establishing the time frame she was describing. I was frustrated and actually had to draw on my knowledge of recent SF history (from living here) to place it in time. Even so, I give it five stars because it is so thought provoking, moving, inspiring, and real. I would like to know more about the hospice volunteers, the lack of a morgue in the new building, etc. I appreciate those comments, but I feel that the author wrote from her experience of the place rather than trying to get absorbed into an aspect of LHH that she had been less a part of. Or perhaps she did include more about it and an editor had her cut it? If anyone wants to write a book about the hospice volunteers at LHH and can do it even half as beautifully as Dr. Sweet has written about her experiences there, I promise to read it. less

Download links for: God's Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine

Advertising