Wake up to BREAKFAST WITH HOPE, a monthly reading & discussion group hosted by Hope Torrents and sponsored by Sylvester Cancer Center!

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Next Meeting:

Tuesday, February 23, 8AM EST

REGISTER HERE FOR FREE

This Month’s Book:

For readers of Atul Gawande and Jerome Groopman, a book of beautifully crafted stories about what life is like for patients kept alive by modern medical technology.

Modern medicine is a world that glimmers with new technology and cutting-edge research. To the public eye, medical stories often begin with sirens and flashing lights and culminate in survival or death. But these are only the most visible narratives. As a critical care doctor treating people at their sickest, Daniela Lamas is fascinated by a different story: what comes after for those whose lives are extended by days, months, or years as a result of our treatments and technologies?

You Can Stop Humming Now, Lamas explores the complex answers to this question through intimate accounts of patients and their families. A grandfather whose failing heart has been replaced by a battery-operated pump; a salesman who found himself a kidney donor on social media; a college student who survived a near fatal overdose and returned home, alive but not the same; and a young woman navigating an adulthood she never thought she’d live to see — these moving narratives paint a detailed picture of the fragile border between sickness and health.

Riveting, gorgeously told, and deeply personal, You Can Stop Humming Now is a compassionate, uncompromising look at the choices and realities that many of us, and our families, may one day face.

“Gripping, soaring, inspiring.”-Atul Gawande, author of Being Mortal

BUY THE BOOK HERE

About the Author:

Daniela Lamas is a pulmonary and critical care doctor at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital and faculty at Harvard Medical School. Following graduation from Harvard College, she went on to earn her MD at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons, where she also completed internship and residency. She then returned to Boston for her subspecialty fellowship. She has worked as a medical reporter at the Miami Herald and is frequently published in the New York Times. This is her first book.

Who is Hope?

Hope Torrents is the Museum Educator and Director of the Fine Art of Healthcare program at the Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami where she’s worked since 1999. In 2010 her husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Over a six-year period Jordi was in and out of the hospital 45-50 times.

Hope’s own work with The Lowe Art Museum’s Fine Art of Healthcare is one step in preparing future healthcare providers to maintain cultural humility, to work collaboratively, and to communicate effectively with patients and their families. Hope’s interest in creating a book group on health and well-being was in part propelled by her conviction that to be well means to pay attention to our physical and mental well-being. In collaboration with Sylvester Cancer Center, The Breakfast with Hope book group will continue to explore readings; both fiction and non-fiction, that will provide us with tools to maintain our own health.

What is Hope’s Book Club?

Hope has been facilitating discussions for the last 20 years. Now, she joins us to kick off a series of monthly discussions about her passion: health and well-being. After years of research and attending workshops at Harvard, Columbia and the University of Florida, Hope aims to tap into the interest that many of us have about our own health and well-being, and share her knowledge with our community.