{"product_id":"gods-hotel-a-doctor-a-hospital-and-a-pilgrimage-to-the-heart-of-medicine-9781594486548","title":"God's Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eVictoria Sweet's new book, SLOW MEDICINE, is on sale now!\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eFor readers of Paul Kalanithi's \u003ci\u003eWhen Breath Becomes Air, \u003c\/i\u003ea medical \"page-turner\" that traces one doctor's \"remarkable journey to the essence of medicine\" (\u003ci\u003eThe San Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e). \u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eSan Francisco's Laguna Honda Hospital is the last almshouse in the country, a descendant of the Hôtel-Dieu (God's hotel) that cared for the sick in the Middle Ages. Ballet dancers and rock musicians, professors and thieves--\"anyone who had fallen, or, often, leapt, onto hard times\" and needed extended medical care--ended up here. So did Victoria Sweet, who came for two months and stayed for twenty years.\u003cbr\u003e Laguna Honda, relatively low-tech but human-paced, gave Sweet the opportunity to practice a kind of attentive medicine that has almost vanished. Gradually, the place transformed the way she understood her work. Alongside the modern view of the body as a machine to be fixed, her extraordinary patients evoked an older idea, of the body as a garden to be tended. \u003ci\u003eGod's Hotel \u003c\/i\u003etells their story and the story of the hospital itself, which, as efficiency experts, politicians, and architects descended, determined to turn it into a modern \"health care facility,\" revealed its own surprising truths about the essence, cost, and value of caring for the body and the soul.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Victoria Sweet\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Riverhead Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 04\/02\/2013\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 432\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.86lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.10h x 5.40w x 1.00d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9781594486548","brand":"Ripon Bookstore","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":44151072161837,"sku":"9781594486548","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0681\/0501\/1245\/files\/img_8d8816d0-2ea0-4394-9dbe-8e58135a78a8.jpg?v=1757342031","url":"https:\/\/riponbookstore.com\/products\/gods-hotel-a-doctor-a-hospital-and-a-pilgrimage-to-the-heart-of-medicine-9781594486548","provider":"Ripon Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}