What Cannot Be Undone
What Cannot Be Undone
True Stories of a Life in Medicine
In his award-winning debut essay collection, What Cannot Be Undone, Walter M. Robinson shares surprising stories of illness and medicine that do not sacrifice hard truth for easy dramatics. These true stories are filled with details of difficult days and nights in the world of high-tech medical care, and they show the ongoing struggle in making critical decisions with no good answer. This collection presents the raw moments where his expertise in medical ethics and pediatrics are put to the test. He is neither saint, nor hero, nor wizard. Robinson admits that on his best days he was merely ordinary. Yet in writing down the authentic stories of his patients, Robinson discovers what led him to the practice of medicine—and how his idealism was no match for the realities he faced in modern health care.
A narrator readers can trust.
It was a gift and a relief to see the human being inside of our desperately complicated systems of mortality in both near-cinematic visceral detail (’I want to put my fingers in the wound to prove it is real’) and profound reflection—faith, fear, ethics. If we’re going to understand what’s happening to healthcare in this country—to life and death—we need to understand its people. We need What Cannot Be Undone.
Among physician authors, Dr. Robinson stands out for his ability to peel away the common clichés and tropes that populate so much of this literary genre, giving us unflinching insights into both the utterly mundane as well as the truly extraordinary experiences of physicians and patients alike.
What are the limits of the power of doctors, and of human beings? When should we intervene, and when it is our job to watch and to accept? Reading Walter Robinson is like getting stories from a brilliant war correspondent. He’s our man on the ground, and the ground is medicine, life, and death. A gorgeous and important book.
By showing us what is often hidden behind a white curtain, Dr. Walter Robinson explains how to reconcile ourselves, as others have, to sickness and to health. Everyone who has ever sweated it out in a hospital waiting room should read this astonishing book.
Walter M. Robinson is a physician and a writer in Massachusetts. He is also a founding editor of EastOver Press and Cutleaf, an online literary journal. His essays have appeared in wildness, Months to Years, AGNI, Ruminate, The Sun, The Literary Review, and Harvard Review.
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Note
What Cannot Be Undone
Donna, Who Died Twice
The Necessary Monster
Nurse Clappy Gets His
Cognitive Sparing
This Will Sting and Burn
The Box at the Bedside
White Cloth Ribbons
The Kiss of Salt
White Coat, Black Habit
