The Case of Dr. Sachs

by Martin Winckler

Book Overview

A huge bestseller in France, where over 600,000 copies have already been sold, this unique work has become required reading for people seeking what literature still has to teach them in our new technological age. The novel centres around the life of a family doctor and his interaction with his patients. Empathy for the sick and the suffering are at the fore but a multitude of medical anecdotes make this an exceptionally beautiful story and a lesson...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1583220569
• ISBN13: 9781583220566
• Release Date: October 2000
• Publisher: Seven Stories Press
• Length: 432 Pages
• Weight: 1.83 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

An undiscovered treasure

This is the story about a small town general practitioner and his patients in France, but it's really a statement about life, connectedness, relationships, and more. How relationships change and morph over time. How people help other people. How sometimes we can't help, but can listen. How sometimes things occur that seem bad, but turn out in unexpected ways. This is a book that I read with few expectations, but I found myself thinking about it more and more after I read it. I've shared it with friends, all of whom really enjoyed it.

An unusual way of glimpsing a doctor's life!

Written in second person and narrated by those whose lives intersect with that of Dr. Bruno Sachs, this novel is a portrait of a French country physician's daily life and his practice of medicine. The story is told by patients, friends, relatives, a girl-friend and the doctor's own writing. Most of the book is sparkling dialogue. Dr. Sachs is portrayed ascaring, dedicated, practical, supportive, and determined.Very creative in the way it's told, the story brings out the main character vividly through the eyes of others. It's not often that a novel can so accurately portray the human side of a medical practitioner. Might it have something to do with the fact that the author, a medical doctor himself, wants to let the world know what a doctor feels and how he reacts to patients on a day to day basis as well as show what patients really feel about their physician? If so, he thoroughly succeeds, as his delightful story conveys all that and more.

another point of view

This extraordinary book looks at the general practitioner from the patient and the community - seeing us in their eyes - and the view is both reinforcing and disturbing. If you ever wanted to tap into the interior dialogue of the people we see daily, then read this book, work for a few months, then revisit it. Winckler (nee Marc Zaffran MD) is a gp and writes with insight that is simply remarkable - he sees the stories in his patients lives - and he sees the stories in ours. The long soliloquies that the doctor writes - our only glimpse of his inner work - say things that doctors think but don't say - or write!! It is a book that starts slowly, moves with a cadence and rhythm that any doctor in a community recognizes, and wraps us in the lives of these people - and leaves us wondering about Sachs - what he really thinks and how he reconciles his anger at what medicine has become and cannot do with his patient, peaceful exterior. A book to treasure.

To be human

Winckler is a very good writer and a great humanist. His book is so captivating that you will have to take a vacation in order to read it. You will laugh (a lot), cry (a lot), and return as a different - and better - human-being.