A physician's life may be viewed as hard and demanding or blessed and fortunate, depending on one's perspective. Certainly, hard and demanding is the intense scientific and clinical training period, lasting over a decade past college. Adding to work demands is the natural and trained desire to never err in diagnosis or treatment that might add to a patient's suffering. So how is a physician's life blessed? Blessed is the physician granted permission by patients to enter into their lives at the most private and deep level. This permission is granted in part from the patients' urgent need to understand and treat their illness and pain, but also out of trust earned from years of confidential interaction. With this trust, the physician may be witness to extraordinary challenges, dramatic events, and remarkable courage, often in remote and isolated locations. These vivid characters who speak to you in Lion in the Night have a hard-earned truth to tell the readers. Some of these truths are spoken outright, but most are acted out in the drama of their decisions and lives. I hope the characters' voices and my witness to their struggles may add a new lens to the reader's eye into the meaning of life.
