Dissident Doctor: Catching Babies and Challenging the Medical Status Quo

Klein, a retired family physician, recounts growing up as a “red diaper baby” in the 1940s U.S., his subsequent medical career, and other aspects of his life in this disappointing memoir. He cites his parents’ pro-Soviet activism before WWII and their struggles during the McCarthy era, when his father could not find work and his mother took over as breadwinner, as a major influence on his life and particularly on his work as a doctor. He goes on to revisit formative student trips to Mexico and Ethiopia, his dilemma in 1966 upon submitting dual applications to the United States Public Health Service and to his local draft board as a conscientious objector, and his professional path to becoming a professor of family practice at the University of British Colombia. Halfway through the narrative, the focus shifts to the series of strokes that the author’s wife suffered in 1987 and her subsequent recovery. Unfortunately, Klein does not expand upon the themes he raises, and the narrative resembles a chronologically arranged collection of vignettes more than a cohesive story. A dry tone and bland writing—“In 1963, having survived the preclinical years and beginning to taste the fun of clinical medicine, I decided to treat myself”—leaves the literary potential of an undoubtedly rich and rewarding life untapped. (Mar.)