Title: On Call: A Rural Surgeon’s Story
Author: J. Lottmann, M.D.
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1491745150
Pages: 188
Genre: Memoir
Reviewed by: David Allen
Pacific Book Review
In this heartfelt memoir of a lifetime’s worth of knowledge, anecdote, and expertise, the author takes us on a grand tour of her unfolding career and passion.
Many books purport to take the reader inside the hectic sometimes dizzying world of medicine and surgery. This book delivers. In a series of very well (because conversationally) written episodes, Dr. Lottmann describes in graphic detail her childhood, her surgical training, and her life path as a female surgeon in the American rural heartland. Dr. Lottmann faced at least three challenges in her career: practicing surgery in a male-dominated field; balancing the missions of family and motherhood with career; and meeting the exigencies imposed by small town practice.
Dr. Lottmann describes her patients and her mostly female surgical teams with affection. Her use of language is precise but never pedantic. The reader is present at the bedside, in the clinic, and in the operating room.
Her story unfolds in Minnesota, North Dakota and Wisconsin. She expertly narrates her stories of surgical heroism, describing in memorable loving detail her mentors, her particularly interesting cases, her hands-on work with obstetrical, cancer, and emergency patients in accessible always informative detail. Ever wonder what it’s like to save a life – on a daily basis? Or how it feels to get that call at 3 am about a gunshot or catastrophic accident victim? This book tells all. Never a shirker (she often handled 300 or more cases a year) Dr. Lottmann lived her dream and her intense involvement with those in her care shines through on every page.
The author also succeeds in conveying the intense and sometimes heartbreaking conflicts facing doctors today. In recent decades, scientific and artisan doctoring have been compromised by business and administrative decisions that prioritize profit margins rather than patients. Dr. Lottmann’s remarkable career was touched at many points by difficult issues including: Who gets prioritized for care? How to ration precious medical resources, such as rural surgery practice? How far can individual doctors be stretched, to cover the onerous physical demands of night call and overcrowded clinics and hospitals?
Dr. Lottmann’s story is amplified by her religious faith and by the narrative of her personal journey through marriage, divorce, and motherhood. She tells what it is like to be an ethical caregiver who is targeted in the rancorous and greedy sights of malpractice litigation. Her travels and reflections on her ‘life after surgery’-retirement-are capstones to this memorable journey.
This book amply validates the wisdom of following one’s heart (or in this case, the next person’s gallbladder.) The surgeon’s world is a unique world, and surgeons orbit in a rarified atmosphere mostly open to them. Dr. Lottmann’s book brings this world into sharp and tangible focus, making it available to the reader.
