Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures

This is the year that I will read all the books that I listed on my Book Awards III challenge. Two down, three more to go. This book won the Giller Prize in 2006.

I also read Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures by Vincent Lam for the Canadian Book Challenge 3.

Here's the blurb:

Provocative, heartbreaking, and darkly humorous, Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures introduces readers to a masterful new voice in fiction. A practicing ER physician, Vincent Lam delivers a precise and intimate portrait of the medical profession in his fiction debut. These twelve interwoven stories follow a group of young doctors as they move from the challenges of medical school to the intense world of emergency rooms, evacuation missions, and terrifying new viruses. Winner of the prestigious Giller Prize, Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures marks the arrival of a deeply humane and preternaturally gifted writer.

Fitz, Ming, Chen, and Sri are the four ambitious protagonists of Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures. They fall in love as they study for their exams, face moral dilemmas as they split open cadavers, confront police who rough up their patients, and treat schizophrenics with pathologies similar to their own. In one harrowing story set amidst the 2003 SARS crisis, which the author witnessed firsthand, two of these doctors suddenly become the patients.

Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures invites us into a world where the ordinary becomes the critical in a matter of seconds. A formidable debut, it is a profound and unforgettable depiction of today’s doctors, patients, and hospitals.

It's Grey's Anatomy set in a hospital in Toronto. What it really is, a collection of short stories that follow the above mentioned characters while they study, learn, perform their duties and go on with their lives.

I admit, I was dreading starting this book, I was afraid that it would be dull and I would struggle to read it. But I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed reading each short story. I tend not to like short stories because I feel that I cannot connect to the characters, but in this book they were seen in each of the stories. So I had enough time to get to know them.

Reading this book was time well spent.

Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures by Vincent Lam (4.5/5) Short Stories; Published: Doubleday Canada (1/2006); Giller Prize Winner 2006; New Author; Canadian Author; Canadian Book Challenge 3 (3); Book Awards III (2); 2009 100 + Reading Challenge (117);