Michele Harper's book, 'The Beauty in Breaking', is a memoir that delves into her experiences as a Black female physician navigating the healthcare system. She shares stories of forgiveness, recovery, and resilience, highlighting her journey of healing herself while working to heal her patients. Harper's writing style weaves together compelling narratives of her interactions with patients and colleagues, shedding light on the broken systems within US healthcare and the personal struggles she faced as a healer.
Harper's memoir also touches on themes of race, ethics, and autonomy in healthcare. She reflects on her childhood trauma, experiences with racism and sexism, and the challenges she faced while upholding her values in a demanding environment. Through her stories, Harper encourages readers to embrace forgiveness, faith, and the pursuit of a richer life, leaving a message of love and happiness amidst adversity.
Genres:
Topics:
Notes:
Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
The content warnings for The Beauty in Breaking include themes of childhood trauma, racism, sexism, and personal loss.
From The Publisher:
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
A New York Times Notable Book
"Riveting, heartbreaking, sometimes difficult, always inspiring." -The New York Times Book Review
An emergency room physician explores how a life of service to others taught her how to heal herself.
Michele Harper is a female, African American emergency room physician in a profession that is overwhelmingly male and white. Brought up in Washington, D.C., in a complicated family, she went to Harvard, where she met her husband. They stayed together through medical school until two months before she was scheduled to join the staff of a hospital in central Philadelphia, when he told her he couldn't move with her. Her marriage at an end, Harper began her new life in a new city, in a new job, as a newly single woman.
In the ensuing years, as Harper learned to become an effective ER physician, bringing insight and empathy to every patient encounter, she came to understand that each of us is broken-physically, emotionally, psychically. How we recognize those breaks, how we try to mend them, and where we go from there are all crucial parts of the healing process.
The Beauty in Breaking is the poignant true story of Harper's journey toward self-healing. Each of the patients Harper writes about taught her something important about recuperation and recovery. How to let go of fear even when the future is murky: How to tell the truth when it's simpler to overlook it. How to understand that compassion isn't the same as justice. As she shines a light on the systemic disenfranchisement of the patients she treats as they struggle to maintain their health and dignity, Harper comes to understand the importance of allowing ourselves to make peace with the past as we draw support from the present. In this hopeful, moving, and beautiful book, she passes along the precious, necessary lessons that she has learned as a daughter, a woman, and a physician.
Ratings (4)
Incredible (1) | |
Liked It (1) | |
It Was OK (2) |
Reader Stats (10):
Read It (4) | |
Want To Read (5) | |
Not Interested (1) |
What can you read after
The Beauty in Breaking?
About the Author:
Michele Harper has worked as an emergency room physician for more than a decade at various institutions, including as chief resident at Lincoln Hospital in the South Bronx and in the emergency department at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in…
When you click the Amazon link and make a purchase, we may receive a small commision, at no cost to you.
