Island Practice

Cobblestone Rash, Underground Tom, and Other Adventures of a Nantucket Doctor

Biography & Memoir, Reference, Nonfiction, History, Americas, United States, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science
Cover of the book Island Practice by Pam Belluck, PublicAffairs
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Pam Belluck ISBN: 9781610393560
Publisher: PublicAffairs Publication: June 25, 2013
Imprint: PublicAffairs Language: English
Author: Pam Belluck
ISBN: 9781610393560
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Publication: June 25, 2013
Imprint: PublicAffairs
Language: English

With a Foreword by Nathaniel Philbrick, author of the bestseller In the Heart of the Sea

If you need an appendectomy, he can do it with a stone scalpel he carved himself. If you have a condition nobody can diagnose—“creeping eruption” perhaps—he can identify what it is, and treat it. A baby with toe-tourniquet syndrome, a human leg that’s washed ashore, a horse with Lyme disease, a narcoleptic falling face-first in the street, a hermit living underground—hardly anything is off-limits for Dr. Timothy J. Lepore.

This is the spirited, true story of a colorful, contrarian doctor on the world-famous island of Nantucket. Thirty miles out to sea, in a strikingly offbeat place known for wealthy summer people but also home to independent-minded, idiosyncratic year-rounders, Lepore holds the life of the island, often quite literally, in his hands. He’s surgeon, medical examiner, football team doctor, tick expert, unofficial psychologist, accidental homicide detective, occasional veterinarian. When crisis strikes, he’s deeply involved.

He’s treated Jimmy Buffett, Chris Matthews, and various Kennedy relatives, but he makes house calls for anyone and lets people pay him nothing—or anything: oatmeal raisin cookies, a weather-beaten .44 Magnum, a picture of a Nepalese shaman.

Lepore can be controversial and contradictory, espousing conservative views while performing abortions and giving patients marijuana cookies. He has unusual hobbies: he’s a gun fanatic, roadkill collector, and concocter of pastimes like knitting dog-hair sweaters.

Ultimately, Island Practice is about a doctor utterly essential to a community at a time when medicine is increasingly money-driven and impersonal. Can he remain a maverick even as a healthcare chain subsumes his hospital? Every community has—or, some would say, needs—a Doctor Lepore, and his island’s drive to retain individuality in a cookie-cutter world is echoed across the country.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

With a Foreword by Nathaniel Philbrick, author of the bestseller In the Heart of the Sea

If you need an appendectomy, he can do it with a stone scalpel he carved himself. If you have a condition nobody can diagnose—“creeping eruption” perhaps—he can identify what it is, and treat it. A baby with toe-tourniquet syndrome, a human leg that’s washed ashore, a horse with Lyme disease, a narcoleptic falling face-first in the street, a hermit living underground—hardly anything is off-limits for Dr. Timothy J. Lepore.

This is the spirited, true story of a colorful, contrarian doctor on the world-famous island of Nantucket. Thirty miles out to sea, in a strikingly offbeat place known for wealthy summer people but also home to independent-minded, idiosyncratic year-rounders, Lepore holds the life of the island, often quite literally, in his hands. He’s surgeon, medical examiner, football team doctor, tick expert, unofficial psychologist, accidental homicide detective, occasional veterinarian. When crisis strikes, he’s deeply involved.

He’s treated Jimmy Buffett, Chris Matthews, and various Kennedy relatives, but he makes house calls for anyone and lets people pay him nothing—or anything: oatmeal raisin cookies, a weather-beaten .44 Magnum, a picture of a Nepalese shaman.

Lepore can be controversial and contradictory, espousing conservative views while performing abortions and giving patients marijuana cookies. He has unusual hobbies: he’s a gun fanatic, roadkill collector, and concocter of pastimes like knitting dog-hair sweaters.

Ultimately, Island Practice is about a doctor utterly essential to a community at a time when medicine is increasingly money-driven and impersonal. Can he remain a maverick even as a healthcare chain subsumes his hospital? Every community has—or, some would say, needs—a Doctor Lepore, and his island’s drive to retain individuality in a cookie-cutter world is echoed across the country.

More books from PublicAffairs

Cover of the book Moscow, December 25, 1991 by Pam Belluck
Cover of the book Connect by Pam Belluck
Cover of the book Reagan's Disciple by Pam Belluck
Cover of the book Bloodsport by Pam Belluck
Cover of the book Rescue Men by Pam Belluck
Cover of the book The Looting Machine by Pam Belluck
Cover of the book The Inner Lives of Markets by Pam Belluck
Cover of the book Ship of Fools by Pam Belluck
Cover of the book Gusher of Lies by Pam Belluck
Cover of the book Jumping at Shadows by Pam Belluck
Cover of the book Democracy's Good Name by Pam Belluck
Cover of the book We Believe the Children by Pam Belluck
Cover of the book Mugabe by Pam Belluck
Cover of the book Obscene in the Extreme by Pam Belluck
Cover of the book Washington by Pam Belluck
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy