Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures

is a collection of twelve short stories chronicling the lives of four physicians and the patients that they encounter. Bloodletting is an honest and revealing work, which entertains while challenging the reader to reflect on some of the ethical issues presented. The characters have strong initial presentation, but this falters towards the denouement. A scene in the anatomy lab introduces us to three of the protagonists as first-year medical students: Ming, the acerbic, scalpel-happy, left-brain dominant Type A personality, Sri, a sensitive soul who insists on naming the cadaver, and Chen, the peacekeeper who prevents Ming and Sri from vivisecting each other. Fitzgerald, the fourth protagonist, is a loner who uses alcohol to exorcise his demons. The first few stories provide the reader with portraits of these physicians in their youth, while the rest diverge into crossroads following their respective professional and personal lives. Bloodletting is an intensely personal piece that reflects the author's experiences as a Toronto emergency physician, an Arctic research ship's doctor, and a son of immigrants. One of the stories, A Long Migration, is based on the author's experiences caring for his terminally ill grandfather. Dr. Lam paints poignant and often amusing sketches of the various lives touched by his protagonists; he does this most notably in Afterwards, with the embittered description of a recently widowed woman in search of the truth about her husband's death. The most captivating aspect of Bloodletting is the author's gift for describing his characters. In the care of his prose, Ming, Sri, Chen and Fitz are more than words on a page. As a reader, one already feels acquainted with the protagonists: they are your colleagues, friends, and classmates. The first three stories, introducing his characters as medical students, are his strongest: How to Get into Medical School Parts I and II, and Take All of Murphy. Dr. Lam breathes life into his characters by revealing their flaws, vulnerabilities and humanity. He allows the reader to become the character, suffering through the drama and anxieties they are faced with. One of the most memorable scenes is when the lovesick Fitzgerald imagines possible alternate endings to his romantic drama; the author describes this in a comical quasi-soap opera script format. The angst of applying to medical school is captured in a humorous and touching way:"They ate, clarified the puzzles of cell membrane physiology, and talked about their need to become physicians. …