Julia's Mother: Life Lessons in the Pediatric Er

by William Bonadio

Book Overview

A real-life pediatric emergency room doctor reveals the trials, heartbreaks, and triumphs of his work. It's a place of intense human drama, life's highest hopes and deepest despairs. A place we rarely get to see through a doctor's eyes. But now the emergency room at a children's hospita is revealed in a moving and personal notembook by William Bondio, MD. It recounts the lessons a doctor learns beyond the textbooks, revealing insights into the human...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 031225251X
• ISBN13: 9780312252519
• Release Date: April 2000
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Compelling and moving memoir of life in the kids' ER

Great look into the life of a pediatric doctor's world, particularly taking care of sick and dying little ones. Incredibly honest and insightful, Bonadio takes us along for a sneak peek into his world. I enjoyed every page of this book!

Quick read, ER stories

This book was written by an ER doctor in St. Paul who has some very good, interesting stories from several years working in the ER. He covers stories from his medical school and residency preparation, and his views on things like death and recovery, and difficult patients. Much of the book consists of his memoirs of overnight shifts and the interesting, "heart pounding" incidents that come with them. Very good for someone who wants to become an ER doctor or a doctor in general.

Emergency Room Read

A Memoir titled "Julia's Mother" by William Bonadio; M.D. is a very intellectual and astonishing book about the emergency room and becoming a doctor. Although some words I could not understand, this book was really a page-turner. This paperback was the true-life lessons he learned while working in an emergency room. At the begging of this book the doctor comes into contact with young Julia, who was hit by a car in her way to school. Julia was crossing the street in front of her school when a man was driving by and hit her, ripping her little limbs around. Unfortunately she did not make it. After this section in the book he goes on telling about all the different kinds of classes he had to go through for him to become a doctor. One thing I liked about this book was the word choice. The words just came together and painted a vivid picture in my head and made feel as though I was there. If not a reader read this book, it is worth it. In the begging, center the words all seem to help me get a better understanding about the book and what's going on. I must admit a lot of the words were hard to understand, but if you read with a dictionary next to you, you are good to go. The only thing I did not like about this book was how the author skipped around. First he would talk about one thing then in the next chapter he would jump to something else. When you first start to read to think it is about a girl's mother, then immediately into the next chapter you learn about something else. It was easy to follow along but occasionally I was lost in the chapters and the words. The book was like that of a roller coaster almost every chapter was different from the next.

Heartfelt lessons from doctor to patient.

After reading an article about William Bonadio's book, "Julia's Mother" in my local newspaper I knew I had to read it. Too many books are written about hospital experiences and stories of tragedy in the ER. This book was amazing! The stories Bonadio told were so incredibly touching it really makes you think about your own life. Too much do we think of doctors as those people on "the other side of the fence," that don't really know what we are feeling. Bonadio proves to us that yes, doctors do feel too. I would highly recommend this book to anyone!

I didn't want this book to end.

The way the author describes the activity in the ER I felt like I was actually there and could feel what it must feel like to undergo some of the procedures he was describing. I felt so many emotions while reading about what it is like to have the responsibility that ER doctors have. At times I felt very tense, other times I felt like laughing but many times I had tears in my eyes. It was especially difficult to read about the times he had to go to waiting parents and give them the terrible news that he had been unable to save their child. Because of the author's ability to make you feel all of these emotions I am very anxious to read more of his books.