The Eyes Don't See What the Mind Don't Know: A Physician's Journey to Faith

By Mike Litrel

As a boy dreaming of becoming a doctor, Mike Litrel imagined that practicing medicine would be like living inside an action movie, always knowing how to help someone, doing it, and feeling like a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• ISBN: 0974719137
• ISBN13: 9780974719139
• Release Date: October 2004
• Publisher: The Writers Room of Bucks County, Inc.
• Length: 180 Pages
• Weight: 0.77 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 7.6"

Customer Reviews

Wonderful. Simply wonderful.

This book is the most beautiful thing I have ever read. The stories are touching and sometimes funny, and it shows that contrary to the image portrayed by actors on TV, real doctors live surprisingly ordinary lives. I've read Dr. Litrel's articles in the local paper for years, and I'm glad that this book is available so that more people than just those of us who live in Metro Atlanta can read it and be inspired by the beautiful stories. Dr.Litrel is my doctor, and I have never met a kinder person. His writing reflects his personality, sweet, caring, funny, and with a good Christian soul. This is easily my favorite book, and I encourage everyone to read it.

A Great Writer, A Wonderful Doctor

I have been reading Dr. Litrel's monthly columns in local magazines for years and am so glad to have them all in one place now. In this book he gives so many different viewpoints: husband, father, inexperienced intern, very experienced OB-GYN, co-worker, friend, brother, son. Every story gives insights into his feelings and experiences in each of these roles, and the people he interacts with. Dr. Litrel is my own personal physician and has seen me through 6 pregnancies. He has cried with me, laughed with me, prayed with me, been exasperated with me and through it all has provided me with top notch medical care. I don't know how he juggles all his different roles, runs a busy practice and still has time to write, but I am glad he does, because he has touched many lives and his stories will touch your heart.

Read this book and weep-with joy

Litrel was a starry-eyed intern and resident in a gritty, inner-city hospital when he began to encounter the harsh facts of urban life-drugs, violence, unwanted pregnancies, hopelessness, and an exhausted and weary staff of doctors and nurses. Rather than become weary and jaded himself, Dr. Litrel paid attention to the little miracles that were happening around him, and began to write them up as essays which are collected in this book. I defy anyone to read them without occasionally laughing and sobbing out loud-not from grief but from joy and amazement at the human spirit and the power of faith to pull people through impossible situations. There is no sugar-coating on these stories, which include a raped drug addict who becomes a beaming, healthy mother, and a shackled prisoner who is caught in the act of human kindness. Throughout, Litrel presents himself as a flawed and initially disbelieving participant in these episodes, one who occasionally gets cranky and even careless. He uses self-deprecating humor in an artful way, as a counter-weight to the desperation around him, and always brings each story home to his core theme, that the best medicine is human caring and faith in God.