My Wednesday-morning brothers (Randy Townsend, Baker Duncan, Olivier Nadal, Drew Cauthorn, Guy Bodine, and especially Jack Willome) and their wives (and especially you, Dee!) gave me love and faith and held me accountable. "No greater love ..."

Tom Rozanski, neighbor, colleague, and urologist, gave me advice on the vasectomy scene as well as other surgical issues, for which I am most grateful. Rajender Reddy and Gabe Garcia helped me think through issues related to hepat.i.tis B.

Anand and Madhu Karnad, my dearest and oldest friends, read and heard many sections of this and all my previous books over the years; they gave and continue to give me love and sustenance, and I know I have a home wherever they are.

I am grateful to John Irving for his friendship all these years. I have learned so much from him both in our correspondence and in his published work.

Ralph Horwitz, M.D., chairman of medicine at Stanford, created a home for me; I am so grateful for his vision and his and Sally's friendship. I thank my brother, George, and his wife, Ann, and the Kailaths, as well as Helen Bing, for introducing me to Stanford's charms years before I dreamed of coming here.

My lovely wife, Sylvia, spent hours entering the changes that I would write on the ma.n.u.script and did this several times over the years. She more than anyone, but also Tristan, Jacob, and Steven, put up with my absences from society and sustained me through the ups and downs in the writing of this book. Gracias mi amor; con los aos que me quedan ...

Mary Evans, my agent, sold my first story to The New Yorker before we met in person, and she has kept the faith with me since those days in Iowa in 1991. Her discerning eye and wise counsel have made a writer of me, and her friendship has made me a better person. Robin Desser had a hand in my first book, and it was a privilege to get to work with her on this one. Robin saw this book through its many iterations and spent innumerable hours with it and with me, and I am so indebted to her. I have often thought that the grace, pa.s.sion, humility, and extraordinary skill she brings to her craft are attributes she shares with the physicians I most admire. My thanks also to Sarah Rothbard, Robin's wonderful a.s.sistant. I am most grateful to Sonny Mehta for his enthusiasm for this story and his steadfast support of my writing.

Medicine is a demanding mistress, yet she is faithful, generous, and true. She gives me the privilege of seeing patients and of teaching students at the bedside, and thereby she gives meaning to everything I do. Like Ghosh, every year, at commencement, I renew my vows with her: I swear by Apollo and Asclepius and Hygieia and Panaceia to be true to her, for she is the source of all ... I shall not cut for stone.

Abraham Verghese, Stanford, California, June 2008.

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Lambie, T. A. Boot and Saddle in Africa. New York: Fleming H. Redell Co., 1943.

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Marston A. Hamilton Bailey: A Surgeons Life. London: Greenwich Medical Media Ltd., 1999.

Melly, A. J. M. John Melly of Ethiopia. Ed. K. Nelson and A. Sullivan. London: Faber & Faber, 1937.

Speert, H. Iconographia Gyniatrica: A Pictorial History of Gynecology and Obstetrics. Philadelphia: F A. Davis Co., 1973.

Smith, I. Wish I Might. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1955.

Waugh E. Waugh in Abyssinia. Harlow, Ess.e.x, England: Longman, 1936.

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR.

ABRAHAM VERGHESE is Professor and Senior a.s.sociate Chair for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He has served on the faculty at East Tennessee State University, the University of Iowa, Texas Tech University, and the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio, where he was the founding director of the Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics and where he holds an adjunct professorship. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, he is the author of My Own Country, a 1994 NBCC Finalist and one of five books chosen as Best Book of the Year by Time, and The Tennis Partner, a New York Times Notable Book. His essays and short stories have ap peared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Sports Ill.u.s.trated, The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, Story, Granta, The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. He lives in Palo Alto, California.

ALSO BY ABRAHAM VERGHESE.

The Tennis Partner.

My Own Country.