Samuel Shem presents MAN’S 4TH BEST HOSPITAL: A NOVEL at Harvard Book Store

Harvard Book Store welcomes novelist and playwright SAMUEL SHEM for a reading from his new novel, Man’s 4th Best Hospital—the long-awaited sequel to his bestselling, highly acclaimed The House of God.

About Man’s 4th Best Hospital

Years after the events of The House of God, the Fat Man has been given leadership over a new Future of Medicine Clinic at what is now only Man’s 4th Best Hospital, and has persuaded Dr. Roy Basch and some of his intern cohorts to join him to teach a new generation of interns and residents. In a medical landscape dominated by computer screens and corrupted by money, they have one goal: to make medicine humane again.

What follows is a mesmerizing, heartbreaking, and hilarious exploration of how the health-care industry, and especially doctors, have evolved over the past thirty years.

Praise for Man’s 4th Best Hospital

“If you want to know why the doctor spends all visit looking at a computer instead of you, and if you want to know how the doctor feels about it, this is the book for you: a mordantly funny tour through modern medicine with a powerful prescription for how to change.” —Bill McKibben, bestselling author of The End of Nature and Radio Free Vermont

“As he did in The House of God, Samuel Shem provides a bitter, caustic and overdue update on the cold and bureaucratic world that awaits the sick and the dying if they are lucky enough to be able to afford it.” —Arthur Caplan, professor of Bioethics at New York University Langone Medical Center

“Oh my god! This book is brilliant enough to start a revolution. Dedicated nurses, doctors, and all haters of Electronic Medical Records unite! Together we must heed the Fat Man’s call ‘to put the human back in health care.’” —Theresa Brown, RN, author of the New York Times bestseller The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients’ Lives