About the novel

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The term Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is well-recognized when applied to the long-term effects of moral conflict experienced during military deployment in an active battle zone. Severe, sustained psychological stress experienced in childhood may have a similar outcome. [1] 

The term burnout is commonly used to describe the phenomenon when workers in demanding jobs, including healthcare, no longer find their jobs fulfilling and lose their drive to maintain high-quality work performance. 

The term moral injury was first applied to healthcare workers by Wendy Dean, M.D. 

[2]. Dr. Dean states, “Moral Injury is when healthcare professionals are asked to violate their judgment in service to the financial needs of hospitals, insurers, and government, thus making clinicians unable to provide high-quality care.”

In this novel, despite long-term mental injury resulting from psychological stress suffered in childhood and against major institutional obstacles, Dr. Lussi Sim maintains her commitment to providing high-quality medical care. Does she possess the tenacity and grit to thwart a deadly international conspiracy?

References

1. Nadine Burk Harris.: The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-term Effects of Childhood Adversity. Mariner Books: Boston /NY, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019.

2. Wendy Dean et al.: Reframing Clinician Distress: Moral Injury Not Burnout. Federal Practitioner, 36(9):2019. 

 Mhairi was born in what was then called Ceylon to British parents serving in the Royal Navy. She received her early education in England, her primary medical training at Edinburgh University in Scotland, and specialist training in Neonatology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. 

Using her birth surname, MacDonald, she practiced medicine in Scotland, England,  Maryland, New York, California, Washington D.C., and Virginia. Her longest assignment was nearly 20 years at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, the last eight of which were as Medical Director of its Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). She concurrently served on the faculty of George Washington University's Medical School where she was, in 2016, designated an Emeritus Professor of Pediatrics.  She has published 14 medical textbooks, performed research, edited a journal on pediatric AIDS, and has received numerous recognitions internationally.

This is her first novel (a sequel is well underway), but in some ways it serves as an extension of a career treating sick newborns and of her own experience with the condition known as PTSD from circumstances similar to the childhood experiences of the novel's principal character, Lussi Sim.

See also this Marquis Who's Who Millennium magazine:

https://marquismillennium.com/16th_Ed/mhairi-macdonald/218

The book has 231 pages.