[Carrie Anne Weeks]

1. We know that Dr. Pou will be a significant figure in this story. What about Fink’s description of her strikes you the most? What are her strengths and weaknesses?

Dr. Pou has many strengths as a doctor and human being – she is articulate, hardworking, talented when it came to correcting patient’s otolaryngology (ear, nose, throat, and neck) deformities during her surgeries, organized and to the book when it comes to caring for her surgical patients. On page 41-42 of the book, Dr. Pou even went as far to make sure her patients had physical therapy, and above and beyond care for her surgical patients. She got frustrated at the issues the surgical patients had – for example, patients with no health insurance – no way to pay for the expensive cancer surgeries, etc. She was passionate about her work too. Fink contributes the strengths of Dr. Pou to her upbringing – the seventh child in a family of 11 children, raised Catholic, and her father was an internist (doctor) who made house calls and spent more time taking care of his own patients while still being there for his own family. Her father even had Pou, or her siblings go with him on house calls so he could spend more time with his children while he was working. Pou looked up to her father and took his advice to become a surgeon. Pou’s mother was a housewife who looked after her family with her own caregiving qualities, bringing the family through all their crisises, and taught her children to look after each other. According to Fink, on page 39, Pou was on a quest to do good in the world and taking it to an extreme; and when she first showed up at Memorial with her Samsonite luggage and her short, tiny frame she was ready to prove herself to others! (pp. 44).

Dr. Pou has weaknesses as well – we are told on page 41 of the book, she is seen by friends as overdramatic, hyperbolic, and quick to blame others when things go wrong in her life and at work. And on page 42, Pou does not cook her own food, nor she does not know how to use an oven during her own dinner party. And on page 36, she did not bring three days’ worth of food or rations for the duration of the hurricane, and on page 39, her career comes before her marriage to her husband Vince who followed her around while she studied her complex cancer surgeries and did her medical training and schooling. On page 139, we are told by Fink that Pou and her colleagues have little to no training in the Triage system and did not follow a triage protocol – they ranked the remaining patients to be rescued as 1 – being easy to move patients, 2 – patients requiring more assistance, and 3 – the DNR (Do not resuscitate) patients. DNR aka Do NOT Rescue patients. Each ranked patient had a colored band when it came to being rescued so the National Guard would know which patients would be saved first. The sickest became the last to be saved, which meant not every patient was going to make it out alive. This was a heartbreaking thought for Pou.

Fink described Pou with so many different details and visuals of her character to show the reader that Pou is a human being, and she does care about patients. It strikes me most, if Pou cared so much about caring for others – why did Pou harm and end the lives of the 12 Life Care patients? I am left with more questions than answers. I am finding myself feeling sorry for Pou after reading Chapters 3-5!

2. Memorial sustained damage but remained functional on backup power as Hurricane Katrina passes through New Orleans. But, we know that other perils await the doctors and patients in the days to come. How do you feel after reading this part of the book?

After Hurricane Katarina rips through New Orleans, the city is already run down with now gushing 15 feet waves of flood waters heading towards Memorial after 200 feet of levees on Lake Pontchartrain broke – there are people stuck on roofs on houses – looking for rescue, streets full of unlucky cars under water, and disaster-struck people wading through flood waters up to their necks – no it’s not a good scene at all – New Orleans, and where the hospital is, in a State of Emergency!

On page 67 of the book, the National Guard goes to Memorial to warn the staff, who at first don’t believe it, that the levees have broken, and flood waters of Lake Pontchartrain are now rushing towards the hospital! This is a very bad scene, as the backup generators’ 1926 wiring is in the basement of the hospital and because the hospital is already 3 feet under sea level the flood water will damage the wiring. Meaning the hospital will lose its backup generators which power all the life-saving measures – the machines that keep patients alive, ventilators, heart bypass machines, and vital machines, etc., will fail and making it useless for a hospital to function and care for patients. The hospital is already in dire straits after the hurricane, and the flooding of the hospital, the loss of the backup power generators is going to prevent the staff from properly caring for patients. How do I feel about this part of the book, you ask me, they are doomed, and it will get worse!

3. As Memorial shifts from “assault mode” to “survival mode” we see snap shots of the chaos outside the hospital walls. Why is martial law instated?

The city of New Orleans is a complete disaster zone after Hurricane Katarina hit; the police are rendered unable to function properly – the police can’t do their jobs right. The looters, dishonest people living in New Orleans, are coming out in full force after the hurricane happened, looking for goods, blankets, clothing, food, and clean drinking water, etc. and are taking without paying for goods from city shops. To stop this stealing, Martial Law is instated. Martial Law is when the military temporarily rule the streets because the police are unable to function after an emergency event such as Hurricane Katarina and the military rule is to prevent the looters from stealing goods from city shops and restore order in the city.

• This topic was modified 7 months, 2 weeks ago by Carrie Anne Weeks.

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