Joe Bosco is a skilled and dedicated transplant surgeon rising to the top. Saving patients is his life’s mission. He’s also arrogant and self-centered. His temper gets the best of him inside the operating room if anyone on his team falls below his standards. After completing his residency, he turns down academic medicine and accepts a position at a private hospital. Despite the dissatisfaction of his loved ones at his choice, he continues to have faith in the system and speak up for his patients on the waiting list. Until that faith is shattered by corporate greed and unethical loopholes. And when Joe makes a catastrophic mistake in the operating room, the hospital administration leaves him out to dry. His career and relationships hanging in the balance, Joe has to come to terms with how he ended up here. And the road to redemption is not an easy one. All That Really Matters by David Weill is a contemporary medical fiction novel that follows Joe as he accounts for his failings and finds a noble purpose in life.
Book
Ever since he was young, Joe has had large shoes to fill. His is a world-renowned neuroscientist, a German Jewish Holocaust survivor, and Nobel Prize winner. Needless to say, Joe has had his path carved out for him to follow in his father’s footsteps. While he grew up in an upper-class household, he has had to work to be the best in his class and field. That doesn’t mean he never had a social life. He most certainly appreciates women and isn’t shy about his affinity for them. Once he met fellow Harvard Medical School graduate Kate, he expected their futures to align and take the medical world by storm together.
Joe’s arrogance gets the best of him both in and out of the operating room. Kate wants to follow her dream of serving impoverished communities in Africa. Unfortunately, Joe’s career is more important than their relationship, resulting in a loss for both of them. In his career, he becomes increasingly frustrated with his colleagues as they focus on meeting success numbers rather than putting patients first. One irresponsible night is all it takes for his career and medical future to come crashing down. Now Joe is left with no career, no medical license, and no girlfriend. He has to do some serious self-reflecting and atonement in order to put the pieces of his life back together.
Review
Weill shows his talent for writing fiction with All That Really Matters. Joe is a complicated character. Despite his arrogance and self-centered personality, he displays a true concern for the well-being of his patients. But his journey to the bottom and back up again is engaging and well-paced. I was rooting for Joe to get his shit together. The only downside of this book is the beginning where the author dedicates too much time to Joe’s family background that doesn’t entirely add to the plotline and slows the starting pace.
Weill also showed off his healthcare background when it came to the highly-medical pieces of the story – the donor and transplant process, and surgery procedures. I could easily understand the complex ideas without being distracted from the story. And through his relationships with other characters, we see the potential of the great man he can be both in and outside of healthcare.
David Weill joins the Cantina Book Club Podcast to talk about writing fiction vs. nonfiction and plans for more books. Keep an ear out for the interview and pick up a copy of All That Really Matters, available now.
