Reading Guides

Public Service Quiz

What is of greater service to the American people:
a. Riding on a nuclear submarine, pretending to sink ships and wipe out major cities by firing torpedoes and intercontinental ballistic missiles?
b. Wiping up barf when you’re the only person with access to the paper towels and mop.
c. Riding in a Lear jet
d. Watching rich people try to ride a horse
e. Getting on C-Span wearing really expensive clothes
f. Standing in your yard wearing $19 scrubs and petting your dog

First Aid Quiz

1. What do you do when someone is electrocuted in an isolated area and one of you just sharpened your pocket knife?
2. How do you remove a cast if it’s getting on your nerves?
3. What happens if you sew yourself up with embroidery thread?
a. Should you wash the cut before sewing it up?
4. What is the correct tool to use to remove a splinter?
5. What do you do for a severed jugular vein?
6. What do you do if four enemas do not seem to be working?

Medicare Coverage Quiz

1. Does Medicare cover guillotine-related claims?
a. List one possible post-legal-execution-by-beheading claim.

2. Does Medicare cover spacecraft accident-related claims?
a. Does Medicare cover claims related to spacecraft launching pad accidents?
b. Does Medicare cover claims related to weightlessness aboard spacecraft?

3. Does Medicare cover
a. “Spoiled Child”
b. “Spring Fever”
c. “Quarrelsomeness”
d. “Clumsiness”
e. “Double Whammy”

4. Does Medicare have provisions for “stubbed toe”?

5. Does Medicare have provisions for “sore finger”?

Test Your Knowledge of Smoky Mountain Dialect

1. What is “worshing out feet”?
2. What is an “escape goat”?
3. What is “the punies.”
4. Extra Bonus Question: Who had the punies?

General Questions

1. What type of animal was named “Forrest Gump”?
2. Why pour ice water into a sick person’s ear?
3. If a sick person is chatting with you, should you ask them before terminating their life support?

A More Traditional (Serious) Guide

A book club in Jackson, Mississippi asked for a more traditional Reader’s Guide, but I find it impossible to make one for a true book about the people I love most in the world. When you know the people in a book, they’re “human beings” not “characters” and they deserve respect from me about every aspect of their lives. It feels wrong to second-guess any of their life choices, especially ones made in the sorts of stressful circumstances discussed in my book. So I don’t want to make a list of questions about them, but about us… Here’s what I came up with:

(1) Name people you’ve known who were happy despite terrible outer circumstances in their lives — or the reverse — people who are unhappy despite having it all.

(2) Admit the stupidest response you ever made to an emergency situation.

(3) What would you would feel if a close friend told you they’d been diagnosed with a fatal disease?

(4) Think about a drug or alcohol addict you’ve known, what their life is like, and what effect they have on the people closest to them.

(5) Admit your goofiest episode of hypochondria.

(6) Admit, at least to yourself, a time when someone was sick or in pain and needed your help and you didn’t give it.

(7) What’s the most fun you ever had in your life?

(8) What was your dream when you were 30 years old…does it matter to you now?

Official, Formal, Reader’s Discussion Guide

1. Carolyn Jourdan must leave her glamorous, fast-paced life in Washington, D.C., in order to return to her small hometown to help her parents. What kinds of sacrifices have you made for your family? In what ways did those sacrifices affect your life? Were you, like the author, surprised by how you were changed by them?

2. Jourdan reflects on the differences between Michael and Harley’s lives: “Harley had a death wish. He’d been graced with an extraordinary physique, and he abused his body and sought release from the world. Michael, who’d been born with a bad heart . . . struggled heroically to stay alive day by day” (page 28). She then concludes, “If there was one thing I’d learned growing up in a doctor’s office, it was that people’s mood was rarely dependent on their external circumstances. Its origin was almost always internal” (page 29). Do you find that this distinction holds true based on your own experiences? Are there people you know who reflect Michael and Harley’s different approaches to life, and if so, in what ways?

3. Early on, Fletcher says to the author, “Your daddy’s smart. He could’ve done anything, could’ve been any kind of doctor and got rich, but he came out here instead cause he wanted to help people” (page 45). What are the trade-offs in being a small-town doctor versus being a doctor in the big city? What is gained and lost on both sides? What would we lose if small-town doctors disappeared?

4. When Jim Garrison comes to the office with a life-threatening emergency, the author thinks, “Somebody’s gotta do something about this” (page 79). She suddenly realizes that her father is the only person who can help. Have you ever been in a situation where you were the only person who could help, and if so, how did you manage it?

5. How would you characterize Carolyn Jourdan’s relationship with her father? In what ways is it similar to or different from her relationship with her mother?

6. After Taylor Jackson leaves the office, the author thinks, “Every day in this place was spent viewing the most personal and critical moments of other people’s lives…. I was inadequate to the experience” (page 124). Do you believe that’s true? How would you respond to the situations Carolyn Jourdan faces in her father’s office?

7. During one of her telephone conversations with Jacob, the author says, “You know how we always talk about wanting to be in public service so we can help people…. Well, in this place I feel sometimes like I really am helping people. Actual people. It’s not just an idea. I can’t help them much. I know it’s not glamorous, but sometimes I think maybe I’m doing more good swabbing up body fluids and being a friendly face here than I ever did working in the Senate” (pages 177 – 78). Discuss the different ways people help each other. How do you think caring for others informs who you are? Share an experience you had directly assisting someone.

8. Discuss the ways in which Carolyn Jourdan’s view of her father and mother shifts over the year. For instance, early on she describes them as “stoic” and “utterly self-contained” (page 41). How does she see them by the end of the book?

9. When the author catches a glimpse of a human heart during surgery, she says to Henry, “If that’s the heart, I gotta say, it don’t look like much” (page 278). Henry smiles and says, “A lot of the most important things in life ‘don’t look like much.’” Can you think of other examples in the book for which this holds true? Does this statement reflect a situation you have experienced?

10. Near the end of the book, the author realizes the true significance of the story about performing surgery with a pocketknife: “I’d always thought the story was about the astounding surgery. But it wasn’t. It was about using the talents you had, whatever they might be, to the most constructive purpose” (page 296). Who else mirrors this sentiment and why? Historical figures? People in your own life? To what degree is this true for yourself?