About the Book
Therese Zink, the editor of The Country Doctor Revisited, was inspired to begin this anthology when she started teaching in the Rural Physician Associate Program at the University of Minnesota in 2006. This program founded in the early 1970’s places approximately forty third year medical students family physicians practicing in small towns across Minnesota. Students are invited to post their “interesting stories” on a discussion page. Many of the stories begged for a larger audience and Dr. Zink began inviting students to dig deeper into these experiences as she assisted them in writing their stories up for publication. A number of these stories are included in this collection. She cast a wide net across the United States in order to capture the variety of settings, health care professionals, and patients who make up rural America in the twenty first century. The editor's goal in putting together this unique collection was to provide a literary portrait encompassing the full range of rural medicine today, the joys and the challenges that would inspire students to chose this path, reinvigorate those in practice, and delight readers.
Literature and Medicine Series
Kent State University Press agreed to publish the manuscript as part of their highly regarded Literature and Medicine Series, edited by Carol Donley and Martin Kohn. The editors are cofounders of the Center for Literature, Medicine, and Biomedical Humanities at Hiram College. Since 1990 the Center has brought humanities and the healthcare professions together in mutually enriching interactions, including interdisciplinary courses, summer symposia, and the Literature and Medicine book series from the Kent State University Press.
The first three anthologies in the series grew out of courses in the Biomedical Humanities program at Hiram. Then the series expanded to include original writing and edited collections by physicians, nurses, humanities scholars, and artists. The books in the series are designed to serve as resources and texts for healthcare education as well as for the general public. The Country Doctor Revisited is #19 in the series.
Audio Interviews About The Book
KSEN Shelby, Montana
http://ksenam.com/is-there-a-doctor-in-the-house/
KAXE Grand Rapids, MN
http://www.kaxe.org/Audiobox/RealGoodWords/RGW2011_0907_ThereseZink.mp3
Sound Medicine Indiana Public Radio
http://soundmedicine.iu.edu/segment/2774/Book--The-Country-Doctor-Revisited
University of Minnesota Bookstore Reading
http://www.bookstores.umn.edu/genref/podcast.html