<DIV>In this deeply human memoir, Audrey Young uses her skills as a keen observer of people and recorder of details to track her development as a doctor and, ultimately, as a person. She chronicles her experiences as a medical student in the most remote regions of the American West and Africa and it is in these remote areas where Young's education truly begins. A baby's rapid deterioration, a terminal cancer patient's refusal of treatment, clinics where AIDS and tuberculosis are everyday realities from these crises the author draws the hardest lessons of all, the ones only patients can teach. Young's graceful prose captures the immediacy and emotional complexity of lives in distress. Her quiet sensitivity and intuition, qualities that make great doctors and writers alike, shine throughout this work. </DIV>