A Life Worth Living

This is the searing, candid memoir of a remarkable woman who fought against all the odds set against her to become a successful physician in not one, but three different countries. Neither sexism, racism, debilitating disease, nor the birth of a brain-damaged daughter could stand in her indomitable way as she surmounted failure and tragedy to triumph in the end.

They said she couldn't be a physician, because women didn't become doctors in Austria, her country of birth. They said she couldn't be a Jew when the Nazis invaded Austria in the late 1930's. Again they said she couldn't be an MD in wartime England despite a dire shortage of physicians. They said she couldn't be a mother when her daughter was born tragically brain-damaged. Again they said she couldn't be a doctor when she tried to raise her family in her new country of the United States of America. They said she couldn't practice medicine when her husband had a serious accident and she came down with a severe eye disease. But she did become a successful physician . . . not in one, but in three different countries. And she did raise a family until she had to make the most devastating decision of her life. This is the story, filled with tragedy, failure, success, and joy, of a woman who defied all the odds. Despite so many onerous circumstances, both physical and mental, working against her, she thrived, and this brutally honest autobiography of one woman's amazing journey to achieve fulfillment is both soul-searing and inspirational.

They said she couldn't be a physician, because women didn't become doctors in Austria, her country of birth. They said she couldn't be a Jew when the Nazis invaded Austria in the late 1930's. Again they said she couldn't be an MD in wartime England despite a dire shortage of physicians. They said she couldn't be a mother when her daughter was born tragically brain-damaged. Again they said she couldn't be a doctor when she tried to raise her family in her new country of the United States of America. They said she couldn't practice medicine when her husband had a serious accident and she came down with a severe eye disease. But she did become a successful physician . . . not in one, but in three different countries. And she did raise a family until she had to make the most devastating decision of her life. This is the story, filled with tragedy, failure, success, and joy, of a woman who defied all the odds. Despite so many onerous circumstances, both physical and mental, working against her, she thrived, and this brutally honest autobiography of one woman's amazing journey to achieve fulfillment is both soul-searing and inspirational.