Doctors and Friends by Kimmery Martin

Doctors and Friends by Kimmery Martin – 384 pages 

Book Blurb:

Doctors and Friends: Hannah, Compton, and Kira have been close friends since medical school, reuniting once a year for a much-needed vacation. Just as they gather to travel in Spain, an outbreak of a fast-spreading virus throws the world into chaos.
When Compton Winfield returns to her job as an ER doctor in New York City, she finds a city changed beyond recognition—and a personal loss so gutting it reshapes every aspect of her life. Hannah Geier’s career as an ob-gyn in San Diego is fulfilling but she’s always longed for a child of her own. After years of trying, Hannah discovers she’s expecting a baby just as the disease engulfs her city. Kira Marchand, an infectious disease doctor at the CDC in Atlanta, finds herself at the center of the American response to the terrifying new illness. Her professional battle turns personal when she must decide whether her children will receive an experimental but potentially life-saving treatment.

My Review: 4.5 stars – Guest Review

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Doctors and Friends by Kimmery Martin is an eerily prophetic, beautifully written, fascinating, and suspenseful tale about a viral pandemic, written by a former emergency room physician. The most astounding thing about this book is that the author wrote it prior to our current Covid 19 pandemic. Some of the parallels between the fictionally depicted ”artiovirus” and Covid 19 are uncanny. Many parts of the book reflect the reality of what our world has been going through over the past two years. The book is told in three timelines: Before – During – and After the artiovirus. It is told from the point of view of three of the main characters: Kira, Hannah, and Compton. If you have read either of Martin’s previous two books (“The Queen of Hearts”, “The Antidote for Everything”) you’ll be pleased to be reunited with several of the characters in those books. The characters are all so strongly drawn, that it isn’t necessary to have read the previous two books. 

Martin does an amazing job of portraying life in the middle of a deadly pandemic from the perspectives of a group of friends who met while in medical school. All of the primary and secondary characters are so real, likeable, and relatable. I loved and admired all of the strong women that were depicted. This story is much more than a story about a global pandemic. It is a novel about these unique women and the bonds of enduring friendship and love that they have shared and currently share, and how the virus impacts the world, and their personal and work lives. Themes of love and friendship are woven into each chapter so that there is a nice blend of both the medical and interpersonal aspects of the story. The character development was amazing… I felt like I was a member of this close knit group of friends. Their dialogue was smart, witty, deeply emotional, and had depth. The striking parallels between the events unfolding in Martin’s fictional world and our current world were gripping, and I was totally engrossed from start to finish. The story was compelling, and the plot lines were perfectly executed. The author also vividly writes about details of the cultures of Morocco and Spain. The way the government was prepared and reacted to the pandemic in this book was idealized and hopeful (I wish that some of our leaders handled the pandemic the way it was depicted in this book!) Martin’s unique perspective as a medical professional enables her to highlight the struggle and sacrifice along with the strain on the first responders and healthcare workers in a personal way. Don’t miss the author’s note at the end of the book where she talks about her inspiration and the edits she made as the real pandemic struck. The book was impeccably researched.

Some readers might think it is too soon to read a story about a fictional pandemic when we are in the middle of a real one, but there are many things that are very different from what we are going through, and the focus was equally on the characters and many other themes, with many elements of hope and inspiration. I appreciated the book more, because of the current crisis we are going through. This is Kimmery Martin’s best work to date, and it shouldn’t be missed. It is wonderful contemporary fiction and medical drama. Guest Fairy Review by Ronna W. 

Quotes I liked:

No one had the luxury of disregarding the symptoms of even a minor cold any longer; if you suffered a cough or a headache, you also suffered a hefty dose of fear. Gone were the days when a sniffle was merely an annoyance.”

“Losing a loved one was not the ultimate grief.. The ultimate grief was realizing the suffering of one you loved and being helpless to do anything about it.” 

“It’s one of the dangers of academic medicine; you focus on metrics and lose sight of the beautiful, messy, heart-stabbing reality of the human beings those numbers represent.”

“The human brain isn’t equipped to deal with worst-case scenarios. Some mysterious psychological quirk protects us from believing in the validity of our nightmares, allowing us to dismiss bad things even as we acknowledge their existence. When this protective mechanism fails we become paranoid and phobic, and when it works too well, we dismiss rational risk assessment in favor of sunshine and roses. Rarely do we strike the perfect balance.” 

 “…I’m learning that shame can coexist with acceptance.”