Island Practice

If you need an appendectomy, he can do it with a stone scalpel he carved himself. If you have a condition nobody can diagnose-"creeping eruption" perhaps-he can identify what it is, and treat it. A baby with toe-tourniquet syndrome, a human leg that's washed ashore, a horse with Lyme disease, a narcoleptic falling face-first in the street, a hermit living underground-hardly anything is off-limits for Dr. Timothy J. Lepore.

This is the spirited, true story of a colorful, contrarian doctor on the world-famous island of Nantucket. Thirty miles out to sea, in a strikingly offbeat place known for wealthy summer people but also home to independent-minded, idiosyncratic year-rounders, Lepore holds the life of the island, often quite literally, in his hands. He's surgeon, medical examiner, football team doctor, tick expert, unofficial psychologist, accidental homicide detective, occasional veterinarian. When crisis strikes, as with a string of teenage suicides, he's deeply involved.

He's treated Jimmy Buffett, Chris Matthews, and various Kennedy relatives, but he makes house calls for anyone and lets people pay him nothing-or anything: oatmeal raisin cookies, a weather-beaten .44 Magnum, a picture of a Nepalese shaman.

Lepore can be controversial and contradictory, espousing conservative views while performing abortions and giving patients marijuana cookies. He has unusual hobbies: he's a gun fanatic, roadkill collector, and concocter of pastimes like knitting dog-hair sweaters.

Ultimately, Island Practice is about a doctor utterly essential to a community at a time when medicine is increasingly money-driven and impersonal. Can he remain a maverick even as a healthcare chain subsumes his hospital? Every community has-or, some would say, needs-a Doctor Lepore, and his island's drive to retain individuality in a cookie-cutter world is echoed across the country.

"Much in this book by Pam Belluck comes as a revelation. Some of it is fascinating; some of it is hilarious; and some of it is sad and very troubling ... a remarkable portrait of a physician and the island community to which he remains steadfastly devoted." -from the Foreword by Nathaniel Philbrick, author of In the Heart of the Sea and The Last Stand

"Pam Belluck has dissected the antics and heroism of a Nantucket doctor who doubles as the resident wizard. This physician not only makes house calls (even to tree-houses), but also invites patients to drop in at his house for treatment. If you suffer from Nantucket Fever-or any other ill while on that island-Dr. Tim Lepore is your man." -Dava Sobel, author of Longitude and Galileo's Daughter

"Through the improbable story of an eccentric and intensely creative Nantucket doctor-the man has operated with flints!-Pam Belluck has crafted an elegant and wildly entertaining depiction of the struggle to maintain humanity and empathy in the face of health care's ongoing industrialization.... A truly wonderful read." -Warren St. John, author of Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer and Outcasts United

"If you want to understand the ‘real' Nantucket, you must read Island Practice. Dr. Tim Lepore personifies the island's fierce, quirky, and independent spirit. This is a book about an extraordinary man-a doctor, yes, but also a community hero. His story is as engrossing as the best fiction ... but it's all true." -Elin Hilderbrand, author of Silver Girl, The Island, and other novels