Carnage in America

"Carnage in America" offers compelling reading from an insider on the frontlines of the Covid-19 pandemic. Candid and insightful, author and physician Steve Weiss mixes political commentary, social justice and three-plus decades of medical expertise to highlight the heavy toll the politicization of an international pandemic is taking on a nation ill-prepared to handle the crisis. -Jan Larson, Professor and Chair, Department of Communications and Journalism, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire

In 1970, at the beginning of a glorious career, a newly graduated Harvard Medical School physician named Michael Crichton published "Five Patients". This book was an insightful and captivating study of practicing medicine that wove medical history and trends in society into intimate portrayals of humans facing tragic health challenges. In "Carnage in America," Dr. Steve Weiss has updated this approach 50 years later, with no less literary power. He has written an eloquent and touching testimony of a physician in the front lines of the battle with COVID-19 in a small Midwestern city. His thoughtful stories connect the lives of his patients with the big issues in our society: the breakdown of civility, political indoctrination, and lack of trust in scientists and public health officials. It is a must read. -Dr. Paul Thomas, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire

Steven Weiss, MD, FACP is an internal medicine doctor at Mayo-Eau Claire. For 32 years, he's practiced medicine in the hospital in which he was born.