Death of the Good Doctor

by Kate Scannell

Doctor Kate Scannell abandoned her academic career in 1985 expecting to enter an "ordinary" medical practice in Northern California. Instead, the thirty-two-year-old physician found herself assigned to a county hospital AIDS ward where much of the medicine she has studied over many difficult years was rendered irrelevant. Working with AIDS patients, nearly all of whom are dying, Scannell discovers the inadequacy of the "good doctor" who battles illness to keep patients alive regardless of their suffering. By embracing her patients’ unique needs and stories, Scannell reaches an expanded understanding of her patients and of herself as a physician. DEATH OF THE GOOD DOCTOR richly chronicles the intimacy of Scannell’s relationships with her patients through whom the vast complexities of the AIDS epidemic are uniquely focused. It is through these beautiful, often difficult, and sometimes humorous portraits that the woman and the physician discover each other.