The patients' narrative

As I prepare for my clinical fellowship in Oncology, I'm reading Siddharta Mukherjee's masterpiece, The Emperor of Maladies: A Biography of Cancer. As with any medical discipline, the patients remain central.

But the story of leukemia—the story of cancer—isn't the story of doctors who struggle and survive, moving from one institution to another. It is the story of the patients who struggle and survive, moving from one embankment of illness to another. Resilience, inventiveness, and survivorship—qualities often ascribed to great physicians—are reflected qualities, emanating first from those who struggle with illness and only then mirrored by those who treat them.

This book excites, challenges, and inspires me.