---

Presents a behind-the-curtain look at doctoring in all its triumphs and failures in an attempt to answer a very simple question: What does a doctor do?

---

Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things.

A 3-year-old asks her physician father about his job, and his inability to provide a succinct and accurate answer inspires a critical look at the profession of modern medicine.

In sorting through how patients, insurance companies, advertising agencies, filmmakers, and comedians misconstrue a doctor´s role, Andrew Bomback, M.D., realizes that even doctors struggle to define their profession. As the author attempts to unravel how much of doctoring is role-playing, artifice, and bluffing, he examines the career of his father, a legendary pediatrician on the verge of retirement, and the health of his infant son, who is suffering from a vague assortment of gastrointestinal symptoms.

At turns serious, comedic, analytical, and confessional, Doctor offers an unflinching look at what it means to be a physician today.

Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

---

Introduction

1. The Fourth Wall
2. My Favorite Types of Patients
3. I Have Good News and Bad News
4. You Get Better Because We Are Better
5. Doctors at Home
6. Texters and Emailers and Tweeters
7. What Are Their Names?
8. Highly Attentive Medicine
9. It´s Complicated
10. And It Will Last Forever
11. The Business of Medicine
12. A Diagnosis (Something to Do)
13. Everything You Say Is Important to Me
14. Harp Lies
15. The Longer You Stay, the Longer You Stay
16. The Future Is Already Here
17. History and Physical
18. Don´t Worry
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

---

This little gem should be required reading included in all medical schools as a reference for lessons in empathy for first- and last-year medical students, and for anyone who watches and is wary of the changes that are taking place in healthcare. Five stars. Manhattan Book Review

---