Fiction Pick of the Week: My Name is Mary Sutter

My Name is Mary Sutter by Robin Oliveira 2010

Take a step back in time and read the wonderful debut novel of Robin Oliveira. Mary Sutter is a young midwife in 1860’s Albany, New York. Unlike her twin sister, she is spirited and strong-willed, and wants nothing more than to have her medical degree and practice medicine. No medical school will accept her so she leaves her home to travel to Washington D.C. to nurse the sick and wounded of the Civil War. Her strength sees her through terrible living conditions and the horrors of war but she never gives up her dream of becoming a physician.

Compelling story of a time period where women were not taken seriously in the professional world and how one would not be stopped until her dream was realized.

Non-Fiction Pick of the Week: The Night Shift

The Night Shift by Brian Goldman 2010

Dr Brian Goldman of CBC Radio’s ‘White Coat, Black Art’ takes the reader through a regular 12 hour night shift in the Emergency Room of a large hospital in Anywhere, Ontario.

All the patients’ and physicians’ stories are based on true cases; the names and circumstances have been changed to protect the guilty and the innocent. Goldman has taken cases from colleagues and from his own 20 plus years spent working the night shift at Toronto’s Mount Sinai Hospital. He takes us behind the emergency room doors and shows us what really happens in the struggle between life and death. A fascinating look at the Canadian medical scene, both the good and the bad; with an authoritative glimpse into the future for anyone who has ever been, or has yet to be, a patient in the Emergency Room.