
The title of this bracing memoir — I Can't Save You — by former ear, nose and throat surgeon Anthony Chin-Quee seems to suggests an inability or unwillingness to save lives.
But upon further reading, its seeming surrender actually affirms the Hippocratic Oath when you consider that Chin-Quee, a Black man who struggles with racial barriers throughout, can't save others without first saving himself — and that, as the tale tells, the author has to let go of his personal demons to prosper in his medical calling.