My Own Country: A Doctor’s Story
By Abraham Verghese
(Vintage Books – ISBN: 0–679–75292–7)
In My Own Country: A Doctor’s Story, Dr. Abraham Verghese gives an account of his five–year experience as an infectious–disease doctor in rural America during the AIDS epidemic between 1985 and 1989. This is also a story about a man coming to grips with values, priorities, compassion,country, identity, family and social taboos.
Verghese’s parents were expatriates from India who lived and taught in Ethiopia for 35 years. They came from the Christian state of Kerala, renowned for having the highest literacy rate in India. Born and raised in Ethiopia, Verghese first came to the United States in 1973 after political unrest and war interrupted his medical schooling in Ethiopia. He completed his medical studies in Indiaand returned to the United States with a medical degree.
In 1985, once Dr. Verghese completed his specialty training at the prestigious Boston City Hospital — the premier training center for infectious disease in the country, he accepted a position as an Infectious Disease doctor in the small town of Johnson City, Tennessee. He had completed his internship and residency there a couple of years before. He and his wife were looking forward to returning to the simpler way of life in Appalachia with their newborn son.
The town’s community hospital saw its first AIDS patient while Verghese was absent. The patient was the grown son of a local couple returning home to see his parents. He made it as far as the hospital and died there. AIDS was still virtually unknown in rural America, although it was already full–blown in big cities like San Francisco and New York.
In the time that Verghese practiced at Johnson City the number of AIDS patients ballooned to 80. Unfortunately, many of them died while he was there. Those were heart–wrenching times of grief and pain for the patients and their families. Verghese knew all his patients personally. He visited their homes and met their families. This was small–town America, and Verghese was like an old–fashioned country doctor making house calls and responding to patients’ needs.
Because of the phobias and prejudices shown toward AIDS patients and the gay community, colleagues and certain other members of community shunned Verghese and his patients. This became more and more difficult to bear as the numbers of AIDS patients increased.
But many of the rural folks surprised even themselves as they came face–to–face with their fears and biases and chose compassion instead of hatred.
My Own Country is a story of identity, growth and finding one’s home and place in the world and community. Verghese felt the love of home and country in Johnson City, and he was personally embraced and accepted by the townspeople in spite of the reputation for prejudice in the South.
Verghese possessed all the qualities needed to be a wonderful ID doctor for Johnson City; great parents raised him, he worked hard for success and he possessed a compassion for people. But challenges like the balance of work and home life, fears of contracting the deadly HIV virus,patients dying of AIDS and strains on his marriage took their toll.
After spending five years in Johnson City, Verghese decided to take a sabbatical and work at the University of Iowa’s outpatient AIDS clinic. This was a far less demanding role with no in–patient care responsibilities.
In Iowa, Verghese pursued his lifelong love of writing as well, and received training in the famous Iowa’s Writers Workshop Program.
Verghese’s book is an historical documentary of AIDS in rural America. This book can be given to college students who want to understand a period of American history. This is also a book about finding oneself that can serve as a study for people who are trying to come to grips with who they are and how they fit into the world.
The book deserves a PG rating, however, for homosexuality, stories of wretchedness of the AIDS disease, death and some offensive language.
Verghese grappled with issues of right and wrong, life and death. This book helps people ask themselves the deeper questions of life, to soul–search and to try to understand themselves at a new level. Moral and psychological issues are personal and individual, but the process of getting to know oneself can be similar to another’s. By looking at the thought processes and the questions that are asked, people can test the waters and see if or how it applies to them.
My Own Country shows that values such as excellence, compassion, vision, intelligence and striving to be true to oneself, cannot easily be taken away. And these qualities are as much a part of finding My Own Country as the turf beneath a person’s feet.
– Katherine Kay
