num_pages: 432
description: By the bestselling author of Cutting for Stone, a story of medicine in the American heartland, and confronting one's deepest prejudices and fears. Nestled in the Smoky Mountains of eastern Tennessee, the town of Johnson City had always seemed exempt from the anxieties of modern American life. But when the local hospital treated its first AIDS patient, a crisis that had once seemed an urban problem had arrived in the town to stay. Working in Johnson City was Abraham Verghese, a young Indian doctor specializing in infectious diseases. Dr. Verghese became by necessity the local AIDS expert, soon besieged by a shocking number of male and female patients whose stories came to occupy his mind, and even take over his life. Verghese brought a singular perspective to Johnson City: as a doctor unique in his abilities; as an outsider who could talk to people suspicious of local practitioners; above all, as a writer of grace and compassion who saw that what was happening in this conservative community was both a medical and a spiritual emergency."
language: English
title: My Own Country: A Doctor's Story
titlecomplete: My Own Country: A Doctor's Story
genres: Autobiography, Medical, History, Biography Memoir, Biography, Medicine, Science, Health, Memoir, Nonfiction
ratings_count: 11645
awards: awardedAt: 788947200000
name: Lambda Literary Award
category: Biography/Autobiography, awardedAt: 757411200000
name: National Book Critics Circle Award
category: General Nonfiction
publisher: Vintage