Samuel Shem

Combinando su experiencia como médico y su enorme talento para la más negra comedia del absurdo, Samuel Shem ha escrito un libro catártico, la crónica de la entrada en la vida de quienes de algún modo han elegido trabajar con la muerte.Roy Basch, el narrador y protagonista, y sus compañeros Chuck, un negro que siempre lleva en su maletin una petaca de whisky; Runt, judio y muy psicoanalizado, y Potts, un emigrado del sur son brillantes licenciados de las mejores facultades de medicina, que han conseguido ser aceptados para hacer su año de practicas en uno de los mas prestigiosos hospitales, la Casa de Dios. Y en este año, que muy pronto se parecera a la version de una obra del marques de Sade por los hermanos Marx, se multiplican los episodios de aprendizaje de la medicina pero tambien del horror, la impostura, el cientificismo mas cruel e ineficaz y, sobre todo, de lo ineludible de la enfermedad y la muerte.Tienen un gran maestro, el cinico y sabio Gordo, de quien aprenderan que cuanto menos intervengan menos dañaran al paciente, y que los gomer ancianos dementes, seniles e indestructibles, confinados en el hospital por sus parientes nunca mueren, a menos que se pretenda curarlos. Pero son jovenes, y aun en medio del horror la vida proclama sus derechos, y es asi como el sexo y las orgias con las enfermeras alcanzaran dimensiones epicas...

El protagonista de la mítica y provocadora novela sobre la medicina La Casa de Dios continúa su aprendizaje. Ahora ya se ha graduado y hará su especialización en psiquiatría en un renombrado hospital, donde se topara con un aspirante al premio Nobel cuya tecnica sanatoria consiste en atacar a sus pacientes hasta que se ponen rojos de ira; con un facultativo que receta Prozac y Valium como quien reparte caramelos y usa a sus pacientes como cobayas de una nueva droga; con un freudiano que aplica la teoria de la seduccion con sus pacientes mas atractivas& Una nueva muestra del talento salvaje de Samuel Shem.

Combinando su experiencia como médico y su enorme talento para la más negra comedia del absurdo, Samuel Shem ha escrito un libro catártico, la crónica de la entrada en la vida de quienes de algún modo han elegido trabajar con la muerte. Roy Basch, el narrador y protagonista, y sus compañeros: Chuck, un negro que siempre lleva en su maletin una petaca de whisky; Runt, judio y muy psicoanalizado, y Potts, un emigrado del sur son brillantes licenciados de las mejores facultades de medicina, que han conseguido ser aceptados para hacer su año de practicas en uno de los mas prestigiosos hospitales, la Casa de Dios. Y en este año, que muy pronto se parecera a la version de una obra del marques de Sade por los hermanos Marx, se multiplican los episodios de aprendizaje de la medicina pero tambien del horror, la impostura, el cientificismo mas cruel e ineficaz y, sobre todo, de lo ineludible de la enfermedad y la muerte. Tienen un gran maestro, el cinico y sabio Gordo, de quien aprenderan que cuanto menos intervengan, menos dañaran al paciente, y que los gomer ancianos dementes, seniles e indestructibles, confinados en el hospital por sus parientes, nunca mueren, a menos que se pretenda curarlos. Y tambien tendran que soportar a Jo, la antimaestra por excelencia, una medica integrista y fanatica que pretende vencer a la muerte con las armas mas crueles. Pero son jovenes, y aun en medio del horror la vida proclama sus derechos, y es asi como el sexo y las orgias con las enfermeras alcanzaran dimensiones epicas... Una novela que, como afirma John Updike en su prologo, consigue de una manera deslumbrante esa impresion de vida que postulaba Henry James. Esta historia de una travesia por el valle de la muerte y la verdad de la carne fue publicada por primera vez en 1978, y con los años se ha convertido en un verdadero libro de culto, que ningun estudiante de medicina, medico o paciente hipocondriaco puede permitirse ignorar.

Roy Basch, el protagonista de La Casa de Dios, continúa su aprendizaje. Ya se ha graduado y sabe bastante sobre el arte de curar los cuerpos, y ahora quiere dedicarse a la delicada tarea de sanar el espiritu. Y tras un largo viaje, hara su especializacion en psiquiatria en el renombrado hospital Monte Miseria. Pero si su año de practicas antes de graduarse fue lo mas parecido a una obra del marques de Sade puesta en escena por los hermanos Marx, el aprendizaje de la psiquiatria le permitira conocer ?y hasta participar? en el terrible esperpento en que pueden convertirse todas las teorias sobre la enfermedad mental. El talento salvaje que mostraba Samuel Shem en su primer libro reaparece aqui en todo su esplendor, y la caricatura de las diferentes tendencias de la psiquiatria es demoledoramente divertida y concienzudamente sangrienta.

From the bestselling author of the The House of God comes an ambitious novel about the complicated relationships between mothers and sons, doctors and patients, the past and the present, and love and death... Settled into a relationship with an Italian yoga instructor and working in Europe, Dr. Orville Roses peace is shaken by his mothers death. On his return to Columbia, a Hudson River town of quirky people and plagued by breakage, he learns that his mother has willed him a large sum of money, her 1981 Chrysler, and her Victorian house in the center of town. Theres one odd catch: he must live in her house for one year and thirteen days. As he struggles with his decisionto stay and meet the terms of the will or return to his life in ItalyOrville reconnects with family, reunites with former friends, and comes to terms with old rivals and bitter memories. In the process hell discover his own history, as well as his mothers, and finally learn what it really means to be a healer, and to be healed.

The story of two mothers and a father in love with the same daughter, Samuel Shems At the Heart of the Universe is an epic novel set deep in rural China against the backdrop of an ancient mountain monastery during the time of the one-child-per-family policy. Inspired by the authors experiences as parent of an adopted child, it describes the drama of adoption and the journey of loss and rebirth that can happen when a daughter brings together her adopted mother and father with her birth mother high on a mountaintop.Set in 1991 in Changsha, capital of Hunan province, as a Chinese woman abandons her one-month-old daughter in a pile of celery in a busy market, and then shifting to Changsha ten years later as the daughter returns with her adopted American parents, the story moves across southern China until, high atop Emei San, one of Chinas "sacred mountains" with a Buddhist temple, the four are brought together in the wildernessa perilous and explosive time that unleashes their heartbreak and suffering and, remarkably, transcends it to shared compassion, and new beginnings.

As in all hospitals, the medical hierarchy of The House of God was a pyramid - a lot at the bottom and one at the top.Put another way it was like an ice-cream cone...you had to lick your way up!Roy Basch, the red-hot Rhodes Scholar, thought differently - but then he hadnt met Hyper Hooper, out to win the most post-mortems of the year award, nor Molly, the nurse with the crash helmet.He hadnt even met any of the Gomers (Get Out of My Emergency Room!), the no-hopers who wanted to die but who were worth more alive!

Welcome to Mount Misery psychiatric hospital, home of the crazed, the suicidal, the Machiavellian and the wicked. And thats just the doctors. For Dr Roy Basch, proudly starting his residency there, it is a bewildering and nightmarish experience. The different disciplines appear to compete with one another to find the best ways to reduce the patients to gibbering wrecks. As he immerses himself in the system, he discovers that the process of treating the patients has less to do with making them better and more with maintaining the flow of insurance company money. Basch believes that he can find meaning here, but in an enclosed world which has lost its head, he soon finds that survival, not meaning, is the most valuable lesson he will learn.Mount Misery is hilarious, provocative and terrifying. Filled with biting irony and a wonderful sense of the absurd, it is an absorbing and authentic report from within the crumbling fortress of psychiatry and tells you everything youll never learn in therapy. And its a hell of a sight funnier too.

In this sequel to The House of God and Mans 4th Best Hospital, Dr. Roy Basch returns to his economically depressed hometown in upstate New York to help the struggling hospital battle the COVID-19 pandemic and the money-driven bureaucracy.After the tragic climax of Mans 4th Best Hospital, four doctors have left practicing medicine. But with COVID-19 sweeping the country, they come together to help the small town of Columbia, New York. The doctors and nurses are buckling as they battle both a raging pandemic and the financial woes facing small hospitals everywhere. But no matter whats happening in the world, babies are born, people fall in love, and doctors will do anything to save their patients.Our Hospital reveals the daily struggle of fighting a pandemic and its personal impact on healthcare workers young and old, who are terrified, exhausted...and determined, somehow, to prevail.

As womens spirituality continues to gain popularity, The Buddhas Wife offers to a broad audience for the first time the intimate and profound story of Princess Yasodhara, the wife Buddha left behind, and her alternative journey to spiritual enlightenment.What do we know of the wife and child the Buddha abandoned when he went off to seek his enlightenment? The Buddhas Wife brings this rarely told story to the forefront, offering a nuanced portrait of this compelling and compassionate figure while also examining the practical applications her teachings have on our modern lives. Princess Yasodharas journey is one full of loss, grief, and suffering. But through it, she discovered her own enlightenment within the deep bonds of community and ordinary relationships. While traditional Buddhism emphasizes solitary meditation, Yasodharas experience speaks of The Path of Right Relation, of achieving awareness not alone but together with others.The Buddhas Wife is comprised of two parts: the first part is a historical narrative of Yasodharas fascinating story, and the second part is a how-to readers companion filled with life lessons, practices, and reflections for the modern seeker. Her story provides a relational path, one which speaks directly to our everyday lives and offers a doorway to profound spiritual maturation, awakening, and wisdom beyond the solitary, heroic journey.

The sequel to the bestselling and highly acclaimed The House of GodYears after the events of The House of God, the Fat Man has been given leadership over a new Future of Medicine Clinic at what is now only Mans 4th Best Hospital, and has persuaded Dr. Roy Basch and some of his intern cohorts to join him to teach a new generation of interns and residents. In a medical landscape dominated by computer screens and corrupted by money, they have one goal: to make medicine humane again. What follows is a mesmerizing, heartbreaking, and hilarious exploration of how the health-care industry, and especially doctors, have evolved over the past thirty years.