Excerpt from One Doctor by Brendan Reilly, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I interrupt my story occasionally to comment briefly about its historical background or future implications. These commentaries claim no special expertise about their subjects (each of which could justify a book of its own); rather, their purpose is to deepen the reader's understanding of my story. To paraphrase Hamlet, in this book the story's the thing: What actually happened to me and my patients during the time described was the wellspring for everything written here. For this reason, just as one physician's experience could never embrace the full sweep and complexity of modern doctoring, this book addresses only some of the many contentious issues facing medicine today.

Whether my story will, as Hamlet hoped his own would, "catch the conscience of the King" is for you to decide. As I write this, politicians and policy makers in the United States are debating the form, function, and financing of smart new models of "accountable" health care. (Sadly, medicine has become increasingly unaccountable; today, it is often unclear who is responsible for the inexplicable way patients are treated.) Little good can come of these promising new ideas unless doctors step up, help to make them right, and take responsibility for implementing them well. But doctors can't do this alone. Ultimately, it is you — our patients, the body politic — who will be decisive in these matters. That's why I'd like you to meet my mistress and learn more about her kind of doctoring.

All true tales contain errors. I have tried hard to minimize my own. All persons, events, and settings depicted here are factual. Most names and a few details have been changed to protect individuals' privacy or their confidential medical information. Reproduction of conversations is approximate, not verbatim, as best my memory allows. Any other misrepresentation of actual fact is unintentional.

That said, let the story begin.

Excerpted from One Doctor by Brendan Reilly. Copyright © 2013 by Brendan Reilly. Excerpted by permission of Atria Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.