Island practice : Island practice : $b cobblestone rash, Underground Tom, and other adventures of a Nantucket doctor / $c Pam Belluck

**With a Foreword by Nathaniel Philbrick, author of the bestseller** __**In the Heart of the Sea**__ If you need an appendectomy, he can do it with a stone scalpel he carved himself. If you have a condition nobody can diagnose—“creeping eruption” perhaps—he can identify what it is, and treat it. A baby with toe-tourniquet syndrome, a human leg that’s washed ashore, a horse with Lyme disease, a narcoleptic falling face-first in the street, a hermit living underground—hardly anything is off-limits for Dr. Timothy J. Lepore. This is the spirited, true story of a colorful, contrarian doctor on the world-famous island of Nantucket. Thirty miles out to sea, in a strikingly offbeat place known for wealthy summer people but also home to independent-minded, idiosyncratic year-rounders, Lepore holds the life of the island, often quite literally, in his hands. He’s surgeon, medical examiner, football team doctor, tick expert, unofficial psychologist, accidental homicide detective, occasional veterinarian. When crisis strikes, he’s deeply involved. He’s treated Jimmy Buffett, Chris Matthews, and various Kennedy relatives, but he makes house calls for anyone and lets people pay him nothing—or anything: oatmeal raisin cookies, a weather-beaten .44 Magnum, a picture of a Nepalese shaman. Lepore can be controversial and contradictory, espousing conservative views while performing abortions and giving patients marijuana cookies. He has unusual hobbies: he’s a gun fanatic, roadkill collector, and concocter of pastimes like knitting dog-hair sweaters. Ultimately, __Island Practice__ is about a doctor utterly essential to a community at a time when medicine is increasingly money-driven and impersonal. Can he remain a maverick even as a healthcare chain subsumes his hospital? Every community has—or, some would say, needs—a Doctor Lepore, and his island’s drive to retain individuality in a cookie-cutter world is echoed across the country. ISLAND PRACTICE was optioned for a television series by Imagine Television ("Friday Night Lights," "24") and Fox Television. Screenwriter is Amy Holden Jones, acclaimed feature film writer whose movies include "Mystic Pizza" and "Indecent Proposal." ISLAND PRACTICE audiobook is now available! Read by talented actor Joe Barrett, who has also recorded William Faulkner, Tom Wolfe, John Irving, among others. With a Foreword by Nathaniel Philbrick, author of the bestseller In the Heart of the Sea If you need an appendectomy, he can do it with a stone scalpel he carved himself. If you have a condition nobody can diagnosecreeping eruption perhapshe can identify what it is, and treat it. A baby with toe-tourniquet syndrome, a human leg thats washed ashore, a horse with Lyme disease, a narcoleptic falling face-first in the street, a hermit living undergroundhardly anything is off-limits for Dr. Timothy J. Lepore. This is the spirited, true story of a colorful, contrarian doctor on the world-famous island of Nantucket. Thirty miles out to sea, in a strikingly offbeat place known for wealthy summer people but also home to independent-minded, idiosyncratic year-rounders, Lepore holds the life of the island, often quite literally, in his hands. Hes surgeon, medical examiner, football team doctor, tick expert, unofficial psychologist, accidental homicide detective, occasional veterinarian. When crisis strikes, hes deeply involved. Hes treated Jimmy Buffett, Chris Matthews, and various Kennedy relatives, but he makes house calls for anyone and lets people pay him nothingor anything: oatmeal raisin cookies, a weather-beaten .44 Magnum, a picture of a Nepalese shaman. Lepore can be controversial and contradictory, espousing conservative views while performing abortions and giving patients marijuana cookies. He has unusual hobbies: hes a gun fanatic, roadkill collector, and concocter of pastimes like knitting dog-hair sweaters. Ultimately, Island Practice is about a doctor utterly essential to a community at a time when medicine is increasingly money-driven and impersonal. Can he remain a maverick even as a healthcare chain subsumes his hospital? Every community hasor, some would say, needsa Doctor Lepore, and his islands drive to retain individuality in a cookie-cutter world is echoed across the country. With a Foreword by Nathaniel Philbrick, author of the bestseller In the Heart of the Sea If you need an appendectomy, he can do it with a stone scalpel he carved himself. If you have a condition nobody can diagnose --'creeping eruption'perhaps -- he can identify what it is, and treat it. A baby with toe-tourniquet syndrome, a human leg that's washed ashore, a horse with Lyme disease, a narcoleptic falling face-first in the street, a hermit living underground -- hardly anything is off-limits for Dr. Timothy J. Lepore. This is the spirited, true story of a colorful, contrarian doctor on the world-famous island of Nantucket. Thirty miles out to sea, in a strikingly offbeat place known for wealthy summer people but also home to independent-minded, idiosyncratic year-rounders, Lepore holds the life of the island, often quite literally, in his hands. He's surgeon, medical examiner, football team doctor, tick expert, unofficial psychologist, accidental homicide detective, occasional veterinarian. When crisis strikes, he's deeply involved. He's treated Jimmy Buffett, Chris Matthews, and various Kennedy relatives, but he makes house calls for anyone and lets people pay him nothing -- or anything: oatmeal raisin cookies, a weather-beaten.44 Magnum, a picture of a Nepalese shaman. Lepore can be controversial and contradictory, espousing conservative views while performing abortions and giving patients marijuana cookies. He has unusual hobbies: he's a gun fanatic, roadkill collector, and concocter of pastimes like knitting dog-hair sweaters. Ultimately, Island Practice is about a doctor utterly essential to a community at a time when medicine is increasingly money-driven and impersonal. Can he remain a maverick even as a healthcare chain subsumes his hospital? Every community has -- or, some would say, needs -- a Doctor Lepore, and his island's drive to retain individuality in a cookie-cutter world is echoed across the country. "If you need an emergency appendectomy on Nantucket, the man who will perform it knows how to do so with an arrowhead. Island life is like that: a little unusual, improvised, independent and outside the mainstream. At a time when America's family doctors are under siege, and so many things in health care are combustible and complicated, Timothy Lepore is an extraordinary character. He is the glue that holds health care together on Nantucket, a place where rich and poor, natives and washashores, celebrities and illegal immigrants, tourists and seventh-generation descendants of seafaring adventurers come together. Island Practice takes readers deeply into this world, showing what it is like to practice medicine in a place where life can sometimes seem to be forgotten by time and sometimes seem to be overtaken by it, a place that sits apart from the rest of the country and is yet inextricably tied to its struggles and transformations"--Provided by publisher. A spirited true story of a colorful, contrarian doctor on Nantucket, a world-famous yet strikingly offbeat corner of America. Dr. Timothy Lepore often holds the life of the island in his hands.