Overview

Even Doctors Cry tells the story of Dr. Alvin Reiter, a successful Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, his love for his profession and pride in his work. ''I always felt like Clark Kent putting on my surgical outfit, '' Reiter wrote about his transformative role. Then came a time when even Superman could not help. In 1994, Alvin was diagnosed with incurable Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma and given less than a 40% chance of living 6 years, while his wife Karen was diagnosed with early breast cancer in 1999 and given a 95% chance of total cure. The doctor survived, but Karen did not. She died of metastatic breast cancer in May 2003. Her premature death was aided and abetted by her oncologist, breast and liver surgeons and the gross failure of the medical system in which human error, negligence and hubris can, and did, take a life. The facts are chilling and irrefutable. In the midst of Karen's struggle for life, Reiter became the pawn of some of his ''respected'' colleagues as part of an FBI investigation. Faced with the onset of Karen's disease, he was forced to reevaluate his place in the medical establishment. Up until the time of her illness, he had been living for his surgery, his patients, his wife, their cats and their garden. Sadly, his paradise was a fool's paradise. He had not idea what evil lurked under the Southern California sun.

Full Product Details

9781490460819

Table of Contents

Reviews

Author Information

A native of New York City, Dr. Alvin Reiter is a cum laude graduate of Columbia University with a Bachelor of Science degree. He attended the Downstate Medical Center, State University of New York and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and graduated with an M.D. degree in 1970. Dr. Reiter's post-graduate training was extensive, with a surgical internship at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, general surgical residency at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York, and a four-year surgical training residency in head and neck and facial plastic and reconstructive surgery at the University of California Davis-Sacramento Medical Center. He has held several academic appointments in surgery, including time as a clinical instructor at the University of California Davis and the University of California Los Angeles. He is a diplomate of the American Board of Head and Neck and Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. He is also a member of numerous medical societies including the academies of Head and Neck Surgery, Facial Plastic Surgery, and Environmental Medicine as well as the American Medical Association, California Medical Association, Los Angeles Medical Association, and the American Society of Breast Disease. Dr. Reiter has been an instructor and participant in numerous continuing medical education seminars and has received multiple achievement and recognition awards, including The Physician's Recognition Award from the American Medical Association. He has practiced in his field of head and neck and facial plastic and reconstructive surgery for over twenty-five years in Beverly Hills, California. In addition to his widely acclaimed work as lead surgeon on the team that reconstructed the face of Rodney King after his notorious encounter with police brutality, his pioneering work includes a total jaw transplant in the reconstruction of the face of a gunshot victim. Today Dr. Reiter helps with the leukemia and lymphoma support group at UCLA and is a member of the National Coalition of Cancer Survivors.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available