The Perfect Doctor

forty voices on the imperfect pursuit of an ideal

edited by Sasha Yakhkind, MD

The Perfect Doctor is now published!

On sale for $21.95: Lulu | Amazon | B&N

What does it mean to be the perfect doctor? Are you a medical student hoping to be one, a patient who wants to have one, or someone curious about the human side of medicine? This collection of stories offers a glimpse into the diverse lives of doctors and illustrates that there are as many versions of perfect as there are people. The students, doctors, and patients in this book learn what the perfect doctor means to them through loss, humor, and reflection. Their elaborative, insightful, sometimes funny, and always heartfelt narratives can help you decide what the perfect doctor means to you.

Neurocritical care physician Sasha Yakhkind, MD, MS curated and edited this collection of 40 essays by patients, physicians and trainees about the diversity of perfection in medicine.

Featuring cover art by Sapana Adhikari, MD, a foreword by Gordon Harper, MD, and an afterword by and John Sargent, MD.

The book is published by Pager Publications, Inc., a 501c3 nonprofit publishing house founded by Ajay Major, MD, MBA and Aleena Paul, MD, MBA, MSEd in 2015.

All proceeds from book sales go to Pager Publications, Inc. and will be used to pay for the website costs of all of our online publications. All members of the in-Training and Pager Publications, Inc. editorial boards are unpaid and volunteer.

Endorsements

“These stories convey the depth of the challenge affecting those involved in delivering and accepting medical care. They are punctuated by diversity and individuality, contentment and disillusionment, triumphs and near-disasters. Through prose, poetry and art, they unearth the diverse personal ecology behind the practice of medicine today to help the doctors, teachers, students and patients of tomorrow answer for themselves the question, ‘What is the perfect doctor?’”

Louis Caplan, MD, co-author of Striking Back at Stroke: A Doctor-Patient Journal

“These are the real voices of doctors, patients and loved ones who’ve journeyed through the highs and lows of health care. Their stories offer a glimpse into the truths of a vital yet broken system. All healing starts with listening. Anyone with a heart for improving health care will find a home on these pages.”

Wes Ely, MD, author of Every Deep-Drawn Breath

Contributors

Sapana Adhikari, MD

Jazbeen Ahmad, MD

Sheenie Ambardar, MD

Pouya Ameli, MD, MS

Chinmayi Balusu

Timothy J. Barreiro, DO, MPH

Rohan R. Bhat

Anna Böhler, MD

Alejandra Casillas, MD, MSHS

Emil Chuck, PhD

Miriam Colleran, MRCGP, MD, Dip_L_Q

Anna Delamerced, MD

Andrea Eisenberg, MD

Mallory Evans, BS

Melissa Flanagan, LCSW

Melinda Ginne, PhD

Charlotte Grinberg

Harika Kottakota, BS

Vincent LaBarbera, MD

Robert Lamb, PhD

Ajibike Lapite, MD, MPHTM

Kimberly Gronsman Lee, MD, MSc

Eve Louise Makoff, MD

Jeffrey Millstein, MD

Mayra Montalvo, MD

Audrey Nath, MD, PhD

Chidinma Onweni, MD

Susie Jiaxing Pan

Amisha Patel

Rachel Scheub

Soma Sengupta, MD, PhD, MBA

Palak Shah, MD, MPH, MBA

Blessed Sheriff, MPH

Zachary Simpson, BS

Maya J. Sorini, MS

Danielle Wilfand

Joanne Wilkinson, MD, MSc

Rebecca Lynn Williams-Karnesky, MD, PhD, MEdPsych

M. Daniela Orellana Zambrano, MD

Melani Zuckerman