Worth the Trip: Major Medical Center Stories

Inside this volume

Fifty first-person accounts describe travelling to a major medical center for care, and what the trip cost and gave. People went after eleven doctors could not name an illness, for a newborn's heart, a rare cancer, a child's seizures, a transplant waiting list, oesophageal cancer, a second opinion on surgery or a clinical trial. Writers include a librarian with four hundred and twelve pages of records, a bookkeeper fighting a denial letter, a veteran waiting on a referral, a hair stylist, a seamstress who finally asked for an interpreter, a carpenter on a high-deductible plan, a daughter caring from three states away and patients who went alone, from Anchorage and the Isle of Lewis to Kerala, western Kenya and a fishing town in Newfoundland. They describe flights, ferries, trains and snowstorms, a hundred days in housing near the hospital, video visits, a navigator who called back, panic in a parking garage, and bringing a parent home. The outcomes are mixed: a second opinion that said do not operate, one that agreed with everything, a trip that offered nothing a local surgeon had not, a couple who chose home in the end, a woman sent home because one test was not approved, a father who wishes he had acted sooner, and a patient still waiting to hear.

Who it's for

For patients and caregivers weighing a trip to a major medical center, planning one, or coming home from one, and for anyone sorting records, insurance and travel.

Format · Instant download · PDF & EPUB · Fifty first-person accounts · PDF: 283 pages

A collection of personal testimony, offered as companion reading — not medical advice.

• 50 single-author testimonies from real people
• A short, plain-language introduction to the topic
• Editor's note, contents page, and curated resource list
• Professional interior typesetting and an original cover

Every purchase includes a print-quality PDF (best for desktop, tablet, and printing) and a reflowable EPUB (best for Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo, and phones). Files are DRM-free. You can download both instantly from the order-confirmation screen, and we email them to your inbox as well, so your books are always within reach.