Society of Women in Urology

Book Reviews

• Have you ever felt you would love to read one of those self-help books on balancing family and career, but if you took the time to read, you would be neglecting both your family AND your career? There's an easy solution: you can read in small doses without totally disrupting your fine-tuned schedule with The Wall Street Journal's award-winning column "Work and Family". This column provides tips and stories of real women's triumphs in the never-ending balancing act. If you subscribe online, the column can be found at http://www.online.wsj.com/articles/work_and_family or you can pick up the paper at your local newsstand.

-Martha Terris

• In the Company of Women. Pat Heim and Susan Murphy. Tarcher Putnam: 2001, 332 pages. Pat Heim, Ph.D., known to SWIU for her excellent presentation on gender differences in communication at our annual meeting in Atlanta, has co-authored a new book on how to convert workplace conflicts into powerful alliances. Building on her core concepts of men exhibiting hierarchical relationships while women are more comfortable with "power dead even" interactions, Dr. Heim addresses the development of management and conflict resolution skills to help women function more effectively and ascend further in their careers.

-Jean Fourcroy

• Other Women's Children by Perri Klass: Numerous studies have provided numerical portraits of some of the difficulties of women physicians at work in a field that traditionally has been the preserve of men. These studies, like much of recent feminist literature, often focus on the tension between maintaining a career and being a wife and mother. They usually provide aggregate data but fail to compellingly convey the nuances and emotions involved in the issues they address. In Perri Klass's novel, Other Women's Children, provides a case study of the thoughts and feelings attached to the issues addressed by the scientific inquiries. The book deals with the experiences of a woman pediatrician in a Boston hospital, a woman who uncertainly juggles her career and family responsibilities.

• If you enjoy novels of the medical mystery/thriller nature, such as those by Patricia Cornwell, you may enjoy the series by Stephen White. The protagonist is Boulder, Colorado psychologist, Alan Gregory, who stumbles into a variety of psychologically challenging murder mysteries. SWIU members will be particularly interested in Adrienne, the main character's neighbor who is a tart-tongued female urologist. The female urologist character is a little more tactless and foul-mouthed than most of us would like to see ourselves depicted but she is portrayed as a solid clinician and deft surgeon. In his books, Stephen White claims to draw upon over fifteen years of clinical practice as a psychologist to create his plots and characters. Who among the SWIU membership served as the inspiration for the wisecracking female urologist character in this series?
Born on Long Island, White grew up in New York, New Jersey, and Southern California and attended the University of California campuses at Irvine (where he lasted three weeks as a creative writing major) and Los Angeles before graduating from Berkeley in 1972. Trained as a clinical psychologist, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado in 1979. His thesis focused on the psychological effects of marital disruption, especially on men. After receiving his doctorate, White maintained a private practice and joined the staff at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. He later served as a staff psychologist at The Children's Hospital in Denver, where he focused his attention on pediatric cancer patients.

White began his first novel in 1989 while he was still practicing full time. The book, called Privileged Information (1991), introduces the Alan Gregory character and explores the dilemmas faced by a psychologist who fears that one of his patients is a killer who is likely to strike again. The great success of the first book was followed by Private Practices (1992) and Higher Authority (1994). Next came White's first New York Times bestsellers, Harm's Way (1996), and Remote Control (1997). Critical Conditions (1998) followed, based on White's feelings about his professional experiences dealing with managed health care, and then Manner Of Death in 1999, a look back at Dr. Alan Gregory's earlier professional life. Subsequent releases include Cold Case (2000), The Program (2001), and Warning Signs just released in February 2002. Warning Signs is a was clearly stimulated by the Columbine tragedy which took place in the author's neighboring Littleton, Colorado, as it deals with school violence and disaffected teens.