God's Hotel

This thoughtful, well-written memoir of a medical doctor and historian reminded me of why we doctors practice medicine.

The story of her years at Laguna Honda, a long-term rehabilitation hospital for indigent patients, presented me with a kind of medical practice as different as possible from the intensive care I myself practiced: Slow Medicine, which promotes close observation and deep listening, just sitting together, allowing time to do at least some of the healing. Laguna Honda was a place of hospitality, community, and charity.

I take comfort in knowing that there is still a place for these values in today’s… show more.

I loved this book because it is partly the story of walking the Camino de Santiago—an item firmly near the top of my Bucket List—and partly about the practice of medicine as opposed to the delivery of health care.

The setting is an old-fashioned almshouse and the author, Dr. Sweet, made me cry as I read her inner and outer journey to understanding compassionate care.

As I read, I remembered shifts when I had the luxury of time to really connect with my patients and how different that was to hurriedly filling out request forms and gulping cold coffee.

A doctor, as well as a historian of medicine, Victoria Sweet embraces the potential for healing that most of modern medicine has forgotten. 

Working at Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco, the “last alms house in America,” Sweet’s clinical practice with some of the city’s most destitute and vulnerable patients challenged her to move beyond the frameworks that her medical training provided.

When as a historian, she discovered the work of Hildegarde of Bingen, a twelfth-century nun, writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, as well as a medical writer and practitioner, Sweet realized how much modern medicine still depends on encouraging our… show more.

This book offers a glimpse into the world of medicine and healthcare and how it has changed over the years. The kind of slow, careful, full examination and extended care that Dr. Sweet (author) was introduced to at Laguna Honda Hospital (the last almshouse in the US) shows the importance of whole body, indeed, whole system, care. I deeply appreciate the references to the work of Hildegard von Bingen of the 12th century who was a Benedictian abbess, philosopher, and medical writer and practitioner, and how Dr. Sweet implemented ancient care and philosophies into modern practices.