The Patient in Room Nine Says He's God

Book excerpt: A young Jewish doctor prays to a coma patient's Blessed Mother on Christmas Eve, only to have the woman suddenly awakened; there is the voice that tells a too-busy ER doctor to stop a patient walking out, discovering an embolus that would have killed him. The late-night passing of a beloved aunt summons a childhood bully who shows up minutes later, after twenty-five years, to be forgiven and to heal a broken doctor. This ER doctor finds God's opposite in: a battered child's bruises covered over by make-up, a dying patient whose son finally shows up at the end to reclaim the man's high-top sneakers, the rich or celebrity patients loaded with prescription drugs from doctor friends who end up addicted. But, his real outrage is directed at our cavalier treatment of the elderly, If you put a G-tube in your 80-year-old mother with Alzheimer's because she's no longer eating, you will probably have a fast track to hell.