The Emergency Room: Lives Saved and Lost - Doctors Tell Their Stories

The doctors who contribute to this collection know how to frame a dramatic story, since many of them--Ethan Canin, Susan Mates and Michael Palmer, among others--have published fiction. Sachs, an emergency-room resident in Chicago, shows his shrewdness in selecting such gut-wrenching pieces as one about the teenage mother who scalds her baby to punish its father for not staying home, and the ironic story of an elderly woman being examined in an ER after being raped when the rapist turns up there for treatment of scratches. One piece places us in a ghetto hospital during a shoot-out; another takes us on rounds with a doctor who recalls his medical mistakes. Then there is the tale of the teenage gang member with a bullet wound who flees the hospital before he has recovered, intent on revenge; and of another teenager who smuggles drugs by swallowing balloons filled with cocaine. Not all the pieces are interesting, and some are egocentric, but overall the collection will satisfy those addicted to TV medical series. (Oct.)