More About the Book
Your Heart Is the Size of Your Fist is a pleasure from start to finish: timely and timeless, intimate and wise, compelling and informative. Scholtens offers an insider's view of doctoring, powerful stories of refugees creating new lives in North America, and a personal account of balancing motherhood, medicine, and self.
Your Heart is the Size of Your Fist is impressive--a wonderful read but also a deft exploration of multiple current concerns, from how we care for refugees to how doctors balance their professional and personal obligations and care for themselves.
"Scholtens’ memoir is a transformative exploration of a brave, young doctor from a stable, nurtured environment coming of age in a healthcare system unprepared for this growing and struggling underprivileged group who arrive on Canada’s doorstep with so little in the way of material assets yet so rich in experiences. Skillfully through story, she portrays challenges refugees face when adapting to life in BC and her own frustration with how little she believes she helps them. The reader witnesses her discovery and reaction to stories of wounded survivors, from worlds she can barely conceive. Her loving family she portrays as saving her from delving too far into the trauma that she witnesses. Yet she struggles with the competing demands of motherhood and medicine as the two threaten to merge into one, as mother to mother she celebrates with them."
Published:
September 26, 2017
Format:
Paperback / softback Trade paperback (US)
Page Count:
224