Johanna Shapiro, PhD
Tales My Stethoscope Told Me by Martin Duke, M.D., is a memoir of an eminent cardiologist’s noteworthy experiences with training, patient care, and colleaguial and family relationships. The author wishes to portray the “human.. .idealistic and romantic side” of a physician, and succeeds admirably in this task. Dr. Duke impresses the reader as an unassuming, somewhat whimsical man of great integrity, to whom we might safely entrust our hearts (or our stamp collection, a personal hobby of Dr. Duke’s). While medical students or residents might be interested in Duke’s tales, I suspect it will be fellow practitioners who most appreciate the perspective and humanism his long career has given him. Lay persons will be reassured that caring, compassionate physicians still exist.