Our Hospital - by Samuel Shem (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In this sequel to The House of God and Man's 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 Man's 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 what's 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.

Review Quotes

Praise for Our Hospital

"As the characters struggle through Covid and strive to put "the human" back in health care, they also try to outsmart their corporate bosses and return 'Our Hospital' to the patients and staff. This novel expresses a wish for what health care could and should be: a service dedicated to patients, not profits." --Theresa Brown, RN, New York Times bestselling author of Healing: When a Nurse Becomes a Patient.

"Fifty years ago, Shem's first novel--THE HOUSE OF GOD--became the iconic book to help humanize medical training. OUR HOSPITAL is the fourth in the series and equally riveting, roaring with laughter. It shows how nurses, doctors, and other health professionals--in the face of fierce challenges--can and must stay human."--Dr. Leana Wen, emergency physician, CNN medical analyst, author of Lifelines: A Doctor's Journey in the Fight for Public Health

"Our Hospital captures the emotions of millions of clinicians who bore witness and served during the COVID pandemic. . .[Shem] brilliantly captures the distress caregivers experienced--and yet triumphed. . .Patient centeredness, compassion and human caring is woven in throughout the book." --Debra Albert, Chief Nursing Officer, NYU Langone Health

"We've barely begun to assimilate the impacts of COVID-19 on our culture, economy, politics--but some of the most important lessons are for the practice of medicine. Who better than Samuel Shem to once again combine the very real and the very funny? This is a deeply uncynical book." --Bill McKibben, Third Act, bestselling author of The End of Nature

Praise for Man's 4th Best Hospital

"Darkly funny."--TIME Magazine's New Books You Should Read in November

"Shem has done it again. . . .So timely and relevant. You will get a little pissed-off, double over in laughter and even cry a little."--Sanjay Gupta

"Samuel Shem has challenged generations of doctors in his writing to think deeply about why they chose medicine. His novels illuminate the humanistic core of clinical care, and serve as a bulwark against a system increasingly characterized by avarice and anonymity."--Jerome Groopman, MD, author of How Doctors Think

"If you want to know why the doctor spends all visit looking at a computer instead of you, and if you want to know how the doctor feels about it, this is the book for you: a mordantly funny tour through modern medicine with a powerful prescription for how to change. "--Bill McKibben, bestselling author of The End of Nature and Radio Free Vermont

"As he did in The House of God, Samuel Shem provides a bitter, caustic and overdue update on the cold and bureaucratic world that awaits the sick and the dying if they are lucky enough to be able to afford it."--Arthur Caplan, professor of Bioethics at New York University Langone Medical Center

"Oh my god! This book is brilliant enough to start a revolution. Dedicated nurses, doctors, and all haters of Electronic Medical Records unite! Together we must heed the Fat Man's call 'to put the human back in health care.'"--Theresa Brown, RN, author of the New York Times bestseller The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients' Lives

"Filled with unforgettable characters and the shocking reality of the many rackets running through the medical industry, this sobering yet hilarious satire manages to offer a glimmer of hope for putting humans back into health care."--Booklist (starred review)

About the Author

Samuel Shem is a novelist, playwright, and a member of the faculty of the New York University School of Medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center. His novels include Man's 4th Best Hospital, The House of God, Mount Misery, Fine, and The Spirit of the Place. He is coauthor with his wife, Janet Surrey, of the hit Off-Broadway play Bill W. and Dr. Bob, the story of the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous (winner of the 2007 Performing Arts Award of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence), and We Have to Talk: Healing Dialogues Between Women and Men.