Telltale Hearts: A Public Health Doctor, His Patients, and the Power of Story

San Francisco General Hospital physician Schillinger argues for the importance of listening closely to medical patients while highlighting the inequalities that plague the American healthcare system in this impassioned memoir. “The combination of science and stories holds the key to recovery,” Schillinger begins, decrying medicine’s tendency to “devalue stories” in favor of formulaic treatment. For much of the account, Schillinger reconstructs patient testimonies that have informed crucial treatment decisions across his three-decade career, including that of a construction worker who switched to liquid blood pressure medicine after admitting to Schillinger he couldn’t swallow pills. Other chapters delve into Schillinger’s experiences treating AIDS patients in “the trenches” of the early epidemic, and his efforts to fight obesity as the California Department of Public Health’s chief of diabetes control. Throughout, Schillinger keeps a sharp eye on the contrast between the options available to patients at San Francisco General, a public hospital, with other, private Bay Area institutions, most memorably through a heartbreaking anecdote about failing to get a patient with signs of cancer bumped up on a treatment list. Schillinger’s palpable empathy and narrative skill underscores his conviction that “stories can break down barriers and open up windows into other people’s lives.” The results are moving. Agent: Bonnie Nadell, Hill Nadell Literary. (July)