this book is gentle and sharp and measured and incisive and slow and inexorable and rather subversively inspiring.
it reminds me of the community hospital where i get to spend some time, where we don't have the latest or the fastest or the most detailed, although we have a phlebotomist and radiology, much like sweet's hospital.
it tells me that there is value in learning the patient's story and examining the old fashioned way like i was taught and the way i try (sometimes in vain) to teach it, because it can be kinder and cheaper and more accurate.
it teaches me a new word, inattendu. to be a pilgrim, sweet says, is to know the beginning and the end, and to have adventures in between. the unexpected in the in-between is not unwelcome because it is part of the journey.
