Weekends at Bellevue

Weekends at Bellevue by Julie Holland


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
It's not entirely clear to me why Dr. Holland chose to tell her story, or, at least, to tell it as she did.  In a recent NPR interview she sounded a great deal more sensible and grounded than she sounds in Weekends at Bellevue where she comes across as the petulant, aggressive, badly-behaved doctor we all hope never to see.  Although she tried to illustrate her evolution from an immature, whiny, insecure resident to a caring, respected healer, she apparently never entirely overcame her aggressive tendencies.  Perhaps that makes this more honest than many memoirs, but it also leaves me wondering why she thought her story was worth telling. The book might have been more balanced had it included at least a few stories about the more ordinary patients that came through her ER, rather than focusing to exclusion on the most extreme cases.  It is clear that she is far more interested in extreme pathologies than in all of the people with more mundane, but just as painful to them, problems.  Reading this would certainly dissuade me from seeking Dr. Holland out for treatment in her private practice.  

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