Michele Harper

"A series of connected personal stories drawn from the author's life and work as an ER doctor that explores how we are all broken--physically, emotionally, and psychically--and what we can do to heal ourselves as we try to heal others"--

A Memoir

The Beauty in Breaking

Anvita Bhagavathula

My best friend Grace gifted me this book for my birthday (with annotations and everything) and reading it really truly healed me. I can’t really put into words the peace and wisdom that this book really delivered but I would recommend this book to frankly anyone who is going through a difficult time.

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A New York Times Notable Book LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK CLUB PICK "Riveting, heartbreaking, sometimes difficult, always inspiring." --The New York Times Book Review As seen/heard on Fresh Air, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, NBC Nightly News, MSNBC, Weekend Edition, and more An emergency room physician explores how a life of service to others taught her how to heal herself. Michele Harper is a female, African American emergency room physician in a profession that is overwhelmingly male and white. Brought up in Washington, D.C., in a complicated family, she went to Harvard, where she met her husband. They stayed together through medical school until two months before she was scheduled to join the staff of a hospital in central Philadelphia, when he told her he couldn't move with her. Her marriage at an end, Harper began her new life in a new city, in a new job, as a newly single woman. In the ensuing years, as Harper learned to become an effective ER physician, bringing insight and empathy to every patient encounter, she came to understand that each of us is broken--physically, emotionally, psychically. How we recognize those breaks, how we try to mend them, and where we go from there are all crucial parts of the healing process. The Beauty in Breaking is the poignant true story of Harper's journey toward self-healing. Each of the patients Harper writes about taught her something important about recuperation and recovery. How to let go of fear even when the future is murky: How to tell the truth when it's simpler to overlook it. How to understand that compassion isn't the same as justice. As she shines a light on the systemic disenfranchisement of the patients she treats as they struggle to maintain their health and dignity, Harper comes to understand the importance of allowing ourselves to make peace with the past as we draw support from the present. In this hopeful, moving, and beautiful book, she passes along the precious, necessary lessons that she has learned as a daughter, a woman, and a physician.

It was decent. I thought it was about a oryho surgon so disepoinyed for that

Eva Idsøe

Cindy Lieberman

Stories of Dr Harper’s upbringing are interwoven with stories of her patients. A dedicated ER physician, Dr Harper knows what it is like to be lonely, scared, and alone. I imagine she is a balm to those patients she meets in the ER.

Emily S

While obviously the author’s stories and those of her patients are valid and deserving to be told, I honestly just couldn’t connect with the author or the tone of her writing, so not my favorite.

Abby N. Lewis

I was hesitant to start this book because I worried it would be full of dense, incomprehensible medical jargon; while the book does contain jargon of a medical nature, it was still a very accessible read.

Dr. Harper touches on a lot of thought-provoking aspects of being a healthcare provider, such as taking on responsibilities that are not in your job description and knowing when to ask follow up questions and when to keep silent when evaluating a patient's health.

If you're worried this book will be dense, don't. It's really a very touching and personal account of what it's like to work in a hospital for years.

The New York Times Bestseller “Riveting, heartbreaking, sometimes difficult, always inspiring.” —The New York Times Book Review As seen/heard on Fresh Air, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, NBC Nightly News, MSNBC, Weekend Edition and more An emergency room physician explores how a life of service to others taught her how to heal herself. Michele Harper is a female, African American emergency room physician in a profession that is overwhelmingly male and white. Brought up in Washington, D.C., in a complicated family, she went to Harvard, where she met her husband. They stayed together through medical school until two months before she was scheduled to join the staff of a hospital in central Philadelphia, when he told her he couldn't move with her. Her marriage at an end, Harper began her new life in a new city, in a new job, as a newly single woman. In the ensuing years, as Harper learned to become an effective ER physician, bringing insight and empathy to every patient encounter, she came to understand that each of us is broken--physically, emotionally, psychically. How we recognize those breaks, how we try to mend them, and where we go from there are all crucial parts of the healing process. The Beauty in Breaking is the poignant true story of Harper's journey toward self-healing. Each of the patients Harper writes about taught her something important about recuperation and recovery. How to let go of fear even when the future is murky. How to tell the truth when it's simpler to overlook it. How to understand that compassion isn't the same as justice. As she shines a light on the systemic disenfranchisement of the patients she treats as they struggle to maintain their health and dignity, Harper comes to understand the importance of allowing ourselves to make peace with the past as we draw support from the present. In this hopeful, moving, and beautiful book, she passes along the precious, necessary lessons that she has learned as a daughter, a woman, and a physician.

The Beauty in Breaking A Memoir

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