© 2007
BLOODLETTING AND MIRACULOUS CURES
By Vincent Lam
Published by Anchor Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Ltd. 2006
Reviewed by Dorothy Black
Written by a young emergency physician, this literary debut is fictional but hints often of being true to life. It is actually a collection of medical and human stories. So we have a lighthearted "How to Get into Medical School, Part 1" as well as "Part 11". But in a different, more personal way, we have, for example, a story about a grandfather who involves his medical student grandson in his care, and the problems associated with that including various Chinese beliefs which impact on the situation.
Then we have a tale of the paranoid psychiatric patient, Winston, another of the difficult Eli, and one about a birth. Interpersonal relationships and scenes between doctors and relatives, and descriptions of doctor's reactions to troublesome persons and co-workers, as well as to the police who are sometimes involved, enliven the text. To a degree the situations and characters we meet as we read, are interconnected. Clinical aspects are interesting as they come into the stories and we are exposed also to matters of duty and conscience.
This book has 337 pages, not including the helpful Glossary of Terms. While this is an entertaining and generally satisfying read, this reader did not find the work of prize-winning quality despite the fact that it won the prestigious Giller prize. Perhaps it was only better than the competition!