Book Reviews

The balm for this difficult year can be found in the pages of Departure from the Darkness and the Cold: The Hope of Renewal for the Soul of Medicine in Patient Care by Lawrence J. Hergott, MD.

Dr. Hergott’s writing has profoundly influenced my view of medicine – of how virtuous scientific medicine can, and must, be practiced with compassion. His essays and poems have catalyzed a latent interest in me that lead to an ongoing symposium dealing with the impact of literature on the practice of medicine. I am a different physician for having read Dr. Hergott’s work!

Dr. Hergott has written achingly beautiful poems and essays reflecting on loss and grief – born from personal experience.

This book, artfully written, has the potential to change how you view medicine and life, as a doctor or a patient. Read it carefully!

You will sometime soon, whether you are physician or patient, or God help you both, find yourself in the throes of a heavy sadness no one can fathom. There cannot be, you are certain, anyone on this dear Earth, nor in the Seventh Circle of Hell, suffering as you are. Just as there cannot exist anyone who could possibly sympathize. This is where poetry works best.

Well, some poetry. A book of poetry written not to win some award, nor to gain academic advancement, nor to promote that latest round of talks, seminars, or coffees that the poet finds only too late empties the soul. You want understanding, courage to rise from the dirt of disgrace and continue.

You have that book in your hands. Dr. Hergott, out of a personal loss few of us could survive whole, somehow found that strength, fashioned it into the sword of art, and offers it to you. One of life’s greatest tragedies is missed opportunity. Don’t pass up this one.

For those of us at the University of Colorado, we have long known and long cherished the soulful writing of Dr. Larry Hergott. With this collection, many other readers—patients, colleagues, students, leaders—can now peer into a medical life well lived and a writing life finely wrought.

Dr. Hergott is the embodiment of a healer, one who attends with respect and compassion to the pain and suffering of others. He knows our vulnerabilities because he himself has experienced great loss as a father, a physician and a friend. He has the courage to be authentic and empathic, and I can’t think of any moment in our culture when we needed the balm of his words and the example of his caring more than now.