Five Days at Memorial
“Narrator Kirsten Potter approaches this mammoth work with a deliberate reportorial tone…Her careful, measured performance makes this a remarkable achievement. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
AudioFile
A Barnes & Noble Best Book of the Month
One of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of the Year
A New York Times Book Review Top 10 Book of the Year
An Entertainment Weekly Best Book of 2013 for Nonfiction
One of NPR’s Great Reads Pick
Winner of the 2013 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Best Current Interest
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction
Finalist for the 2013 National Book Award
The award-winning landmark investigation of patient deaths at a New Orleans hospital ravaged by Hurricane Katrina—and a suspenseful portrayal of the quest for truth and justice
In the tradition of the best investigative journalism, physician and reporter Sheri Fink reconstructs 5 days at Memorial Medical Center and draws the reader into the lives of those who struggled mightily to survive and to maintain life amid chaos.
After Katrina struck and the floodwaters rose, the power failed, and the heat climbed, exhausted caregivers chose to designate certain patients last for rescue. Months later, several health professionals faced criminal allegations that they deliberately injected numerous patients with drugs to hasten their deaths.
Five Days at Memorial, the culmination of six years of reporting, unspools the mystery of what happened in those days, bringing the reader into a hospital fighting for its life and into a conversation about the most terrifying form of healthcare rationing.
In a voice at once involving and fair, masterful and intimate, Fink exposes the hidden dilemmas of end-of-life care and reveals just how ill-prepared we are in America for the impact of large-scale disasters—and how we can do better.
A remarkable book, engrossing from start to finish, Five Days at Memorial radically transforms your understanding of human nature in crisis.
Praise