The Last Half Hour of the Day: An Anthology of Stories and Essays That Have Inspired Physicians shares writings that express medical ideals and realities, the devastation of death and illness, the miracle of healing, and the netherworld of remission. Reflections of the physician's role in society and as an observer of the human body and spirit are seen throughout the book. Ernest Hemingway, whose father was a physician in Illinois, writes of a boy accompanying his doctor-father to a difficult birth in Indian Camp. Marie Curie tells of her husband's sacrifices to science in an excerpt from Pierre Curie. In a passage from Life on the Mississippi, Mark Twain wonders, What does the lovely flush in a beauty's cheek mean to a doctor but a 'break' that ripples above some deadly disease. Jean-Dominique Bauby, who suffered a stroke at age 43 that left him with Locked-In Syndrome, contrasts the once-enjoyable soaks in the tub with the weekly hospital ritual in Bathtime. Bauby dictated his book, The Diving Bell and The Butterfly, and died shortly after its publication. The Last Half Hour of the Day: An Anthology of Stories and Essays That Have Inspired Physicians, closes with Ursula Le Guin's The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. Of that tale, Drs. LaCombe and Laine wrote, It is the hope of the editors that this story will haunt caring physicians everywhere. The Last Half Hour of the Day includes selections by Raymond Carver, Victor Hugo, Thomas Jefferson, Doris Lessing, Sinclair Lewis, Pablo Neruda, Frank O'Connor, Edgar Allen Poe, and others. Physician voices include those of Anton Chekov, Susan O. Mates, Sir William Osler, Oliver Sacks, Richard Selzer, Lewis Thomas, Abraham Verghese, and Abigail Zuger. The biographies appended at the end of the anthology give suggestions for further reading. The Last Half Hour of the Day: An Anthology of Stories and Essays That Have Inspired Physicians is the companion volume to In Whatever Houses We May Vi