Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

Doctors have a reputation for being emotionally aloof. Thanks to this
book by Vincent Lam, a practising medical doctor, we now know that
Canadian health professionals are smouldering emotional wrecks, just
like the rest of us. Falling in love, getting dumped, living up to
one’s family expectations, surviving one’s cultural expectations,
road rage, respect for the dead, facing death yourself, SARS, seniority,
and losing half a human head are just some of the themes explored in
this collection of loosely linked fictional short stories. Through
Lam’s eyes, the reader follows a small circle of characters starting
from their pre-med days, through medical school to their eventual
experiences as full-fledged doctors. The word “bloodletting” is a
medieval medical procedure, but it could also stand for the emotional
scars the characters in this book inflict on themselves and each other.
As for “miraculous cures,” there are few; when wounded, the
characters tend to just limp along until the emotional scar tissue
forms.

For readers who do not know Dopamine from a Doptone, a glossary of
medical terms is included in the back. Some of the entries also have the
author’s own humorous impressions recorded in italics such as:
“Crash Cart—refers to a trolley stocked with the equipment and drugs
necessary to initially manage a cardiac arrest (Author’s Note:
Typically, one of the wheels is jammed and the particular sizes of
equipment needed are missing).”

The author knows his subject very well, his characters are entirely
believable, and wry humour takes the reader through some of the more
grisly moments that medical professionals face. Unlike his crash cart,
Dr. Lam’s stories roll along without a wobble and all the pieces are
in exactly the right place.