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Hope and Peril in American Medicine
by M.D. Ricardo Nuila
Where does one go without health insurance, when turned away by hospitals, clinics, and doctors? In The People's Hospital, physician Ricardo Nuila's stunning debut, we follow the lives of five uninsured Houstonians as their struggle for survival leads them to a hospital where insurance comes second to genuine care.
First, we meet Stephen, the restaurant franchise manager who signed up for his company's lowest priced plan, only to find himself facing insurmountable costs after a cancer diagnosis. Then Christian—a young college student and retail worker who can't seem to get an accurate diagnosis, let alone treatment, for his debilitating knee pain. Geronimo, thirty-six years old, has liver failure, but his meager disability check disqualifies him for Medicaid—and puts a life-saving transplant just out of reach. Roxana, who's lived in the community without a visa for more than two decades, suffers from complications related to her cancer treatment. And finally, there's Ebonie, a young mother whose high-risk pregnancy endangers her life. Whether due to immigration status, income, or the vagaries of state Medicaid law, all five are denied access to care. For all five, this exclusion could prove life-threatening.
Each patient eventually lands at Ben Taub, the county hospital where Dr. Nuila has worked for over a decade. Nuila delves with empathy into the experiences of his patients, braiding their dramas into a singular narrative that contradicts the established idea that the only way to receive good healthcare is with good insurance. As readers follow the movingly rendered twists and turns in each patient's story, it's impossible to deny that our system is broken—and that Ben Taub's innovative model, which emphasizes people over payments, could help light the path forward.
"A doctor and professor of medicine adds personal texture to one of the most divisive issues of our time...Nuila's complete, deeply personal dedication to his content and his exceptional command of prose allow him to translate the mercy, authority, and sense of urgency that patients want at their bedsides and citizens want in policy debates...A compassionate, engrossing story of frustrated hopes and unlikely victories in American health care." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Physician Nuila debuts with a troubling yet inspirational look at the state of healthcare for America's 'most medically and financially vulnerable'...Woven into...case studies are poignant reflections on the life of a doctor and incisive analyses of how for-profit medicine hurts patients. This is an urgent and essential call for a more humane healthcare system." - Publishers Weekly
"A rare and unforgettable work, The People's Hospital takes us deep into the lives of some of America's poorest patients. Following in the tradition of Bryan Stevenson's Just Mercy and Atul Gawande's Being Mortal, Nuila makes a revelatory passage through a system that is both flawed and primed for reform." - Andrea Elliott, author of Invisible Child
"Like a handful of other storied public hospitals in America, Ben Taub manages to do the impossible: to provide world class care for the uninsured and indigent; train generations of physicians; pioneer medical breakthroughs; and do it at a fraction of the cost of fancier places. Nuila's lyrical and riveting prose lays bare the dysfunctional, expensive quagmire that passes for our health care system. His stories of patients and those who care for them captures the miracle that is Ben Taub. The People's Hospital is a tour de force." - Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone
"Ricardo Nuila's The People's Hospital is a tour de force. It is a call to action wrapped in powerful storytelling, a book that will prick the consciences of private practitioners while alerting the American public to the care they deserve—and rarely receive." - Mimi Swartz, author of Ticker
This information about The People's Hospital was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Dr. Ricardo Nuila is a writer, teacher, and practicing doctor. He is an associate professor of medicine, medical ethics, and health policy at Baylor College of Medicine, where he directs the Humanities Expression and Arts Lab [HEAL] program.
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