Code Gray: Death, Life, and Uncertainty in the ER

"This book kicks off in the time of Covid . You’ve got all these doctors not knowing what is going on. They’re from all over the country and they’re texting each other on this text chain. What struck me about this book is how well-written it is. It drops us into the fact that there are things which are broken in the American healthcare system. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . The doctor does a nice job of taking us through what’s happening, but also his career and his insider take on healthcare, which is really fascinating. It’s incredibly disheartening, but he is able to talk about mistakes that he has made and how important communication is with the patient. He really makes you feel something for the doctor within the system because, oftentimes, when you ’re receiving healthcare, you’re just feeling frustration. It’s slow, no one is telling you what is going on. To get the doctor perspective was fantastic. He doesn’t narrate the book. He reads a little bit at the beginning, which is cool to hear but I don’t think I could survive it for six hours. Thank goodness they had a professional narrator because there is so much empathy and emotion required with this book. The narrator, Aden Hakimi, really captures that. He does an amazing job. I think he would be fine, he just wouldn’t be able to capture the emotional spark. It can be very difficult in a nonfiction book, finding the emotional storyline. We totally get it here. We think about, ‘How do doctors protect people?’ In terms of Covid, they didn’t just have to think about the patients, they had to think about themselves and their families. They didn’t want to bring the disease home. It brought these layers that are very timely and made the book extremely memorable."