I am honored to include the words of Dr. Abraham Verghese in these pages. His poetry and perspective help to ground the words of the eleven student journal keepers. The voices of Hilary, Rajiv, Michael, Tara, Katie, Carrie, Marcus, Hansoo Michael, Rebecca, David and Andria bring a rich variety to the project that enables deep exploration of this complex experience. The openness and honesty with which this special group of students so carefully wrote is beyond what I ever could have imagined when we began this journey. I cannot express enough appreciation to my collaborators for sharing themselves in this way.

—Meryl Levin
 
Meryl Levin is a social documentary photographer based in New York City. Over the past decade, she has focused her camera on issues of health and social welfare. During that time, she experienced the delivery of medical care from the patient side - in her own life, and in the lives of those she has portrayed. Long curious about 'the other side,' she yearned to explore the making of a physician. Anatomy of Anatomy is her first book. Levin received a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in 1994, and a Fellowship from the Open Society Institute's Project on Death in America in 2000, which helped make this project possible. Her photographs have been published worldwide. She continues to work on long-term documentary projects in the US and abroad.
 
©THIRD RAIL PRESS

 

Abraham Verghese, MD, is the Grover Murray Distinguished Professor of Medicine at Texas Tech University in El Paso. Born in Ethiopia of Indian parents who were teachers there, it was his experience as a physician in Tennessee that inspired his first book, My Own Country. That work intertwines his personal history with that of his patients, and explores his complex experience of doctoring. He is also the author of The Tennis Partner. Verghese's fiction and essays have appeared in Granta, The New Yorker, Sports Illustrated and other publications worldwide.