Search This Blog
April Reviews Link-Up
May Reviews Link-Up
June Reviews Link-Up
July Reviews Link-Up
August Reviews Link-Up
September Reviews Link-Up
October Reviews Link-Up
November Reviews Link-Up
December Reviews Link-Up
2024 Literary Escapes Challenge
2024 Build Your Library Reading Challenge
Through Doctor's Memoir, Bellevue Will Have Its Way With You, Too
"I thought I knew what crazy was. Then I came to Bellevue."
- Julie Holland, M.D.
Every day, New York City's sickest, most pathetic residents troop through the doors of Bellevue Hospital's psychiatric ER. It's a desperate parade of sociopathic inmates, abandoned street folk, suicidal everymen and psychopaths of every stripe. Some want a listening ear, others a safe place to sleep; some enter souped up on drugs, others have been off their meds for months; some want real treatment, others desire only the free painkillers. Each shift brings fresh neuroses, new problems, unique challenges. In short, Bellevue's the perfect workplace for a hotshot young psychiatrist like Julie Holland. An adrenaline junkie who loves nothing more than playing with fire, she gets a sometimes frightening, ofttimes enlightening, always fascinating up-close look at how the brain functions - and malfunctions.
Weekends at Bellevue (which will be published in October) details all the crazy Holland encountered in the 9 years she spent treating patients in the ER, as well as the path that led a would-be rock star to become an honored psychiatrist, professor and author. She describes her growth from a nervous "third-year" who "spent most of my time feeling like I was in either a gory movie or a well-written medical drama" (31-32) to a more confident resident and finally, to an experienced psychiatrist and expert psychopharmocologist. Along the path, she encounters her share of dangerous patients, harmless whack jobs, successes and failures. Her experiences oscillate from outrageous to hilarious to heartbreaking. What makes the book most profound, however, are the truths Holland discovers about humanity and about herself. By the time burnout forces her out of the chaos of emergency medicine into the relative calm of private practice, Holland has come to a startling conclusion:
The reality is this: All of us, to some degree, are mentally ill. We get paranoid, anxious, depressed, and insomniac. We alternate between delusions of grandeur and crippling self-doubt, we suffer from paralyzing fears and embarrassing neuroses. We have compulsions to do things we know we shouldn't, and there are millions of us with addictions, whether to gambling, drinking, dieting, or playing Second Life. Every one of us has psychiatric symptoms, many of them serious enough to warrant attention, even if they are not incapacitating. But few of us are willing to let on that we are suffering. This secrecy and shame compounds our avoidance of those who have been officially diagnosed as mentally ill (293).
Reading
Listening
Followin' with Bloglovin'
-
Top Ten Tuesday - Spring TBR7 minutes ago
-
-
Top Ten Tuesday: Spring TBR | 20242 hours ago
-
TTT – Books On My Spring 2024 TBR3 hours ago
-
-
-
Daily Prompt 18 March monday7 hours ago
-
-
-
-
-
Harris, Robert "Fatherland"20 hours ago
-
Breath as Prayer22 hours ago
-
-
Books from the Backlog #81 day ago
-
-
Don’t Foget Me by Rea Frey1 day ago
-
-
-
-
Sunday Post3 days ago
-
-
Timeline by Michael Crichton3 days ago
-
33. Ferris4 days ago
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Witch Hat Atelier: Kitchen, Volume 11 week ago
-
Catching up1 week ago
-
Review: Dating Dr. Dil1 week ago
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
What Happened to Summer?5 months ago
-
6/25/23 Extra Ezra8 months ago
-
-
-
Sundays with Sam – The Sunday Post11 months ago
-
-
Are you looking for Pretty Books?1 year ago
-
-
-
-
-
Grab my Button!
Blog Archive
- ► 2021 (159)
- ► 2020 (205)
- ► 2019 (197)
- ► 2018 (223)
- ► 2017 (157)
- ► 2016 (157)
- ► 2015 (188)
- ► 2014 (133)
- ► 2013 (183)
- ► 2012 (193)
- ► 2011 (232)
- ► 2010 (257)
- ▼ 2009 (211)
- ► 2008 (192)