3 out of 4 stars
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Doctors-in-training experience plenty of drama on the job, but hopefully few are put in a position of trying to save their hospital from being taken over by a neighbouring hospital. The Days of the Giants by RJ Petrella is a fast-paced, captivating story about young Slater Barnes, an intern at Boston City Hospital who earns the right to be counted among the giants of medicine by standing up and making a difference for the good of his community.
Slater Barnes is by no means perfect – he’s got family problems, girlfriend problems, health problems - but he has a good heart and tries to do the right thing. He’s awkward and charming and you get drawn into the story and cheer him on, hoping everything will work out for him. Boston City Hospital and its employees are portrayed as putting their patients first and treating them with dignity, while at Academy Hospital next door, the staff have rude nicknames for patient stereotypes and they only provide good service to those with health insurance. Boston City Hospital should be saved.
On the other hand, you have the guys from the health commissioner’s office, Spakes and Buckingham. They worked at a sewage plant, then entered politics and by helping the right people get elected, they were promoted to the Department of Public Works. From there they were transferred to the Department of Health Services, where, despite no medical experience, they were responsible for making important decisions about the future of hospitals in the city. They decide they deserve a pay-rise for dealing with boring paperwork so they come up with a dastardly plan to provide upgrades to Boston City Hospital but give the benefits to Academy Hospital in exchange for a nice bonus for themselves. Politics and greed. Unfortunately it’s not an impossible scenario, but you hope these villains won’t get away with their scheme.
If you enjoy watching medical dramas on TV, you’ll probably really enjoy this book. There are some great characters, lots of drama and surprises, conflict, action, romance and more. It’s so convincing, perhaps in part because there is a memoir-style to the writing – “my wife told me to record what happened.”
I rate The Days of the Giants three out of four stars because it is a great story that captured my interest from the first page and it is very well written and edited. I didn’t give it four stars because the only part I didn’t like was the narrative from Slater’s father. It felt weird and disconcerting being informed of events Slater didn’t know about by someone who was dead at the time of those events. It was jarring because the rest of the story was believable, but that wasn’t. Nevertheless, I highly recommend this book and I look forward to reading more by RJ Petrella.
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Days of the Giants
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