Bearing witness to human suffering day after day takes its physical and emotional toll, Harper admits, but, as a healer, she also considers “brokenness” to be “a remarkable gift.” In this time of heroic nurses fighting a pandemic, Harper allows readers to experience the healing process through her knowing eyes. (although one punctuated by violence), a marriage that fell apart, medical school, and a new city and fresh start-yet it is patients she focuses on: a newborn with no pulse a patient who, without warning, punches her in the face a young woman serving in the military in Afghanistan who was raped by her commanding officer. She recounts her life-a privileged upbringing in Washington, D.C. How to tell the truth when its simpler to overlook it. How to let go of fear even when the future is murky. Each of the patients Harper writes about taught her something important about recuperation and recovery. In this compelling, firsthand memoir, she offers a portrait of life on the medical frontlines as seen from a female and African American perspective. The Beauty in Breaking is the poignant true story of Harpers journey toward self-healing. From the start, Harper claims that she has no special powers, nor does she know “how to handle death any better than you.” But as an ER physician, she certainly has confronted the grim reaper far more often than most.
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