High Risk: A doctor's notes on pregnancy, birth, and the unexpected

Description

One doctor's testament to the importance of listening - truly listening - to women and their medical experiences of pregnancy and childbirth. One doctor's testament to the importance of listening - truly listening - to women and their medical experiences of pregnancy and childbirth. 'My work offers a window into the darkest and lightest corners of people's lives, into the extremes of human experience,' writes Dr Chavi Eve Karkowsky in High Risk, her timely and unflinching account of working in maternal-foetal medicine ? the sub-speciality of obstetrics that concerns high-risk pregnancies. As an outspoken champion of women's health, a mother of four, and a humane, wry, and altogether remarkable writer, Dr Karkowsky tells of miracles and joy, but also of challenge and loss - illustrating the complexity of reproduction and the health services that surround it. With historical insight and journalistic verve, she unpacks what is involved for women, for a family, and for us as a society, and explores what's at risk when these aspects of life remain clouded in mystery and misinformation. Blending personal narrative and broader analysis, High Risk is a doctor's gripping and provocative testimonial to the strength and resilience of the women she treats, and - in an era when reproductive rights are under threat - a timely reminder that women's reproductive health is of vital concern to us all.

Dr Chavi Karkowsky is a maternal-foetal medicine specialist. She completed medical school in New York City at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and then completed her residency at Harvard. After two years as a generalist obstetrician-gynaecologist, she entered fellowship at Montefiore Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where she is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Women's Health. She is also the medical director of the largest teaching OBGYN clinic within their system. She is an active member of both the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists as well as the Society of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, and is fully board-certified in both OBGYN as well as maternal-foetal medicine. In addition to her clinical practice, she has published essays and op-eds in The Daily Beast, the Atlantic, Health Magazine, Slate, and the Washington Post.