I've been on a kick of reading physician memoirs lately and this one didn't disappoint. I found the stories to be really fascinating and thought Huyler presented them with compassion and thoughtfulness. I recently read a different book by another author that at times felt disparaging or mocking towards patients but I didn't feel that at all with this book. Reading it I would be thrilled to have Huyler as my doctor. Would recommend.

A version of this review previously appeared in Shelf Awareness and is republished here with permission.

"When they brought him in, he was almost alive.... He tried to save the boy.... So he acted, right then, without waiting for anything or anyone.... There was beauty in his ruthlessness.... Flesh parts to a scalpel effortlessly, like the wave of a hand." Frank Huyler has practiced emergency medicine in Albuquerque, N.Mex., for more than two decades (The Blood of Strangers). As he shows in White Hot Light, Huyler is also a poet, his prose as smooth and cutting as the aforementioned scalpel.

A selection of 30 essays, White Hot Light begins mercilessly with "The Boy," as the trauma team tries to save a teen gunshot victim. Huyler then pointedly flips his perspective to the other side of the lights in "Hail," contemplating the fetal heart monitor tracking the health of his wife and yet-to-be-firstborn child. Huyler's insightfulness paints his pieces, particularly as he ages, as a new generation joins the trauma unit and technology advances. In "The Machine," Huyler eschews the use of a chest compression machine that brutally breaks ribs in its mechanical attempt to restart a heart. In the end, he's wrong, but never shies from self-scrutiny, for better or worse.

Whether in a standalone piece or one of a theme--violence ("The Gun Show"), opioid abuse ("The Motorcycle"), nurses and other staff ("The Sunflower")--Huyler brings a beauty and thoughtfulness to crucial issues affecting medicine and society at large. Within the visceral brutality, the writing is thoughtful and self-reflective, the collection a study of caring.

Dr. Frank Huyler, who is a physician in Albuquerque, New Mexico, reflects on his own life, and the experiences he’s gained in over twenty five years of working in emergency medicine.

In this fascinating book, Dr. Huyler provides a glimpse of what actually happens inside an emergency room. He writes thoughtfully about the cases he has seen over a long career. There are heart wrenching scenes as well as successful outcomes all described in short vignettes.

This book would definitely appeal to anyone interested in the practice of medicine!

Thank you to Net Galley, Harper Collins Publishers, and Doctor Frank Huyler for giving me the opportunity to read the ARC of this book!

See my forthcoming review of White Hot Light by emergency physician Frank Huyler (Harper Perennial) in Booklist magazine.

This book was super entertaining. Behind the doors of the ER is a mystery for someone like me who has never been there and thankfully never had an emergency medical condition. The stories are well-written, short, and written in layman’s terms. I throughly enjoyed this!