"Not since William Carlos Williams has America produced a physician who writes with such sensitivity and power. Haunting, shocking, and unremittingly filled with the drama that happens in hospital emergency rooms and in the intimate encounters of those men and women we call "healers," this first collection of fiction by Stewart Massad is truly a landmark event. The five short stories and three novellas in Doctors and Other Casualties introduce a major new voice in American literature and offer an authentic portrayal of the special worlds doctors inhabit on and off the job." "We meet vivid characters who range from a young gynecologist's pregnant wife to a cranky, self-absorbed senior physician. We enter their lives and see through their eyes the joy of childbirth and the reality of death, the miracles of modern surgery and the timeless aspects of the human condition that science cannot alter. We discover not heroes, but human beings - men and women struggling to keep their family relationships and feelings intact as they deal with overwhelming pressure, suffering, and fear." "In the story "Fatigue," Massad shows us the stressful year of internship that takes idealistic, innocent trainees and plunges them into an environment awash in blood and random death. In "Change," he lets a middle-aged, conservative Southern doctor narrate the fascinating account of a young Boston woman doctor who openly challenges the mores, racism, and culture of a small North Carolina town. In "Healers," he explores the tough issues, the ones with no easy rights or wrongs, and tells the story of a compassionate and talented doctor who runs an abortion clinic, a choice that makes him a social outcast and may cost him his life. And in the novella "Casualties," in which a young resident diagnoses his own leukemia and begins the fight of his life, this author demonstrates his unique ability to make us feel the intensity of his character's emotions - one of the qualities that makes his writing so unforgettable." "Drawn from Stewart Massad's own experiences and stunningly contemporary in style and theme, this is fiction that exposes our society and our souls; it is as much a naked portrayal of our values and our dreams as it is an eye-opening and illuminating portrait of the complex men and women in whose hands we place our lives."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved