The village doctor
Ruth Kenai / Pardes
For almost thirty years, Dr. Ruth Kanai has served as the village doctor – the family doctor of the Emek Ela settlements in the Judean Lowlands. As the village doctor, she treats families from infancy to old age, and knows her patients in health and illness.
Inspired by her patients, Kenai tells stories that expand the mind and heart: a demented Holocaust survivor, whose memories of horror live on in his mind, gains a sense of control over his life and the story he tells himself with the help of psychological-narrative therapy; childhood memories of the doctor, who was hospitalized for many months in the pediatric ward, represent for her the "Friday Syndrome," which expresses the saying that all good things have an inevitable end; the "quality indicators" of the health insurance company where she works remind her of the personal stories of her patients and the courageous - or miserable - choices they made.
The stories raise dilemmas dealing with medical ethics, multiculturalism, and progress, alongside images of mental illness, relationships, old age, parenting, and friendships. The author, a compassionate and loving village doctor who prefers honest and attentive communication with her patients and home visits to remote care, is also depicted. She draws comfort from the valley views, and remembers, wonders, and mourns – not only for dear people who have passed away, but also for a time that will never return.
This is the first book by Dr. Ruth Kanai, a lecturer on medical ethics at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev School of Medicine, and who has trained generations of family medicine residents.
226 pages, 88 NIS.
