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A medical “page-turner” that traces one doctor’s “remarkable journey to the essence of medicine” (The San Francisco Chronicle).

San Francisco’s Laguna Honda Hospital is the last almshouse in the country, a descendant of the Hôtel-Dieu (God’s hotel) that cared for the sick in the Middle Ages. Ballet dancers and rock musicians, professors and thieves—“anyone who had fallen, or, often, leapt, onto hard times” and needed extended medical care—ended up here. So did Victoria Sweet, who came for two months and stayed for twenty years.
     Laguna Honda, relatively low-tech but human-paced, gave Sweet the opportunity to practice a kind of attentive medicine that has almost vanished. Gradually, the place transformed the way she understood her work. Alongside the modern view of the body as a machine to be fixed, her extraordinary patients evoked an older idea, of the body as a garden to be tended. God’s Hotel tells their story and the story of the hospital itself, which, as efficiency experts, politicians, and architects descended, determined to turn it into a modern “health care facility,” revealed its own surprising truths about the essence, cost, and value of caring for the body and the soul.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Riverhead Books; Reprint edition (April 2, 2013)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 432 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1594486549
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1594486548
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.5 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.47 x 0.84 x 8.24 inches
Reviewer: DB
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Gods Hotel -Book
Review: Great read! I just started but already find it very interesting.

Reviewer: A. McCLure
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Step inside the medical world . . .
Review: Ever since my mom's 2-week stint in the ICU and subsequent death in hospice 2 days after discharge from the ICU, I have developed a mini-obsession with reading medical books especially those with case histories and discussion of how hospitals operate. I have no medical training and no medical background; I am a lawyer. Finally, after reading numerous medical books, including this one, I have figured out why the situation with my mom perplexed me so. The ICU doctors operated in the "health care" mode described by Dr. Sweet. At the same time, the palliative nurse advocated hospice and end-of-life pain management. I could never reconcile these two divergent perspectives even though they both emanated from the same hospital. I would ask every medical professional who entered my mom's ICU room whether her condition could improve; did people survive these sorts of issues? I was always given an affirmative answer. I met with the palliative nurse one time for 20 minutes. It was difficult for me to come to the conclusion that this was "it" due to the ongoing tests and procedures performed in the ICU.Dr. Sweet's book helped me understand all of the conflicting roles in today's modern health care system. I was not fortunate enough to ever encounter any physicians such as Dr. Sweet. I'm sure they exist, but they are a rare breed. On a side note, I'm always amazed by people who have so many gifts, i.e., skilled physician and writer. Dr. Sweet is an excellent engaging writer. I learned a lot about various subjects I formerly knew nothing about and enjoyed it along the way. In a sense, I am on a mini-pilgrimage to understand my mom's death and "God's Hotel" has been a valuable addition to my knowledge base of the way the modern medical system works (or doesn't).

Reviewer: Joanne Johnson
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: very glad I did
Review: Fascinating. At first, I thought I would not get into it .... I am squeamish ... sigh ... but I carried on, and I am so very, very glad I did. The author's knowledge, perceptions, etc., re modern medicine are interesting. I really like this gal, and would love it if she were my doc. She produced a very entertaining and informative read, however, the book needed good editing. There were the occasional redundancies ... she would start a paragraph with a statement, follow it up with the background to support her original statement, and then finish the paragraph stating exactly what she had said at the beginning of the paragraph. Also, the book included many incomplete sentences. Although none of this detracted from her basic message, for me, it did detract from the work in its entirety. I kept going back to say, "Huh, didn't she just say that? Huh, didn't she just say that in an incomplete sentence?" Minor quibbles, for sure, but then why should I have had to quibble at all? I do not have an English degree, but these things definitely jumped out at me. In any event, it was a good read, provides much food for thought, and I do recommended it.

Reviewer: Dr Ali Binazir
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: A profoundly human book
Review: A book that can delight you through its entertainments or instruct you with useful knowledge is a good book; one that does both is a great book. Rarely, a book comes along that not only instructs and delights but also deepens your humanity, carving out extra space inside us to carry even more compassion. 'God's Hotel' is such a book. [A hat-tip to Jesse Kornbluth of Head Butler for introducing me to it.]There were many reasons I enjoyed the book, which is really many books at once:-- The author, Dr Victoria Sweet, who has a PhD in medieval history as well as an MD, shares the ancient Latin and Greek etymologies of many terms used in patient care today. Hospitality, community, charity - what do they really mean? Through her stories about her time taking care of patients, Dr Sweet shows how those formed the three foundational principles of Laguna Honda Hospital.-- Dr Sweet interweaves the account of her doctoral research on Hildegard von Bingen in the story. Von Bingen was the original 11th century superwoman: head cleric, builder, farmer, physician, author *and* composer at a time when women weren't allowed much power at all. Dr Sweet applies some of the premodern principles from von Bingen's healing framework to her patients, with encouraging results.-- Dr Sweet describes in great detail and without spite the encroachment of modern medicine with its "efficiencies" into the cozy, personable and strangely effective ways of Laguna Honda, even though there is much to provoke the reader's dismay. The personal, health and financial consequences of cost-cutting, both on patients and staff, turn out to be much higher than the dollars that those measures purport to save. It's a cautionary tale about what medicine can be vs. what it has become, and should be required reading for every medical student.-- And most of all, the stories of the patients. Laguna Honda being a hospital for the care of the indigent - the last almshouse in the US - its patients are people that the good life left behind. The poor, the mentally ill, the unlucky, those with nowhere else to go: these are the patients that Laguna Honda treats equally and without prejudice. Sometimes the patient goes to the brink of death, the 'anima' already halfway in ascent, and turns back. Other times, the patients make miraculous recoveries only to succumb to alcohol or neglect once discharged. These case histories are at once invigorating, enlightening, infuriating and heartbreaking. They are the human heart of the book.One of the side effects of reading any book is to become partially imbued with the spirit of its author. Reading 'God's Hotel', you get a sense that Dr Victoria Sweet is a deeply thoughtful and compassionate person, and one of the very best kind of caregivers one could hope to have. As a result, this book will not only delight and instruct you, but is also likely to leave you a better human being.-- Ali Binazir, M.D., M.Phil., author of [...], the highest-rated dating self-help book on Amazon

Reviewer: Fulya
Rating: 2.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Although the use of language was quite good and some stories were interesting, this book is nothing more than a simple diary of a doctor. Most importantly even it lacks the emotions that should exist in a diary.

Reviewer: npdy
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Una profesional de la medicina plenamente cualificada cuestiona los criterios de eficiencia y eficacia al uso en los sistemas sanitarios occidentales, desde su experiencia de largos años en una institución "benéfica" más allá de la primera acepción del término. El estilo narrativo es el relato sencillo, directo y ameno, pero también plagado de opiniones y reflexiones. Debería traducirse.

Reviewer: mindriots
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: A beautiful book for nurses, doctors, healthcare professionals, and patients alike. One of the best books I have read in a long time. Victoria Sweet sucks you in; you become part of her world in the hospital, and can see everything she describes. It is a moving, compelling, and wonderfully human read. It is also pretty heart-breaking to read about the bureaucratic nonsense that governs healthcare and that ultimately wins out because, as we all know, money usually does. She gets to the heart of it all, and she does it with such poise and grace in her writing and interpretation of situations and encounters that both makes me happy that she is a Physician, and sad that there aren't more like her.I am so happy Dr. Sweet wrote this book; it is so accessible. She writes with understanding and compassion, and as someone who seems to *get* it, rationally and realistically speaking. She describes so perfectly one of the fundamental problems of north american healthcare: lack of time. Taking away time destroys the ability to give optimal healthcare, and she captures this perfectly.As Dr. Sweet finds herself doing with Hildegard of Bingen, I now find myself thinking, "hmmm...what would Dr. Sweet do?" - which tells me that this book really impacted me and my nursing practice!

Reviewer: Docstevewarren
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Today's society norm of taking care of its sick poor originates from the time when monks in the Benedictine era (600 A.D.) were charged to put this duty above all other duties. The Hôtel-Dieu Hospital, regarded as the oldest hospital in the city of Paris, France, was founded by monks in the seventh century. Eventually nuns had sole charge of their patients and only invited physicians in occasionally for difficult patients! This was the time of pre-modern medicine when the world was still understood in Greek terms to consist of four elements, earth, water, air and fire and the body consisted of four humors black bile, yellow bile, blood and phlegm. Everything had to be in balance and the remedy for illness was to correct that balance using diet, bleeding, herbal medicines & changes to climate. The interpretation became known as the "System of Fours" and is all very strange to us. Dr. Victoria Sweet is a contemporary American doctor who developed an interest in pre-modern medicine. In her remarkable book called God's Hotel published in 2012, she gives a riveting account of her practice at Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco whilst studying the work of Hildegard of Bingen, who practiced the old art of medieval medicine. Laguna Honda Hospital is reputedly the oldest "almshouse" (charitable institution for the poor) in America. It was built in 1866 and was based on the "Hôtel-Dieu" principle, that of seeking to relieve pain of one who does not deserve. Its role was particularly significant during a smallpox epidemic in 1868 and in the earthquake and fire of 1908. In the 20 years that Dr Sweet spent in the original hospital building, she cared for patients not covered by insurance including complex medical cases, failed surgical cases, terminally ill patients, revolving door patients (repeatedly being readmitted), drug addicts, alcoholics and the street sleepers. With "progress" in such matters as health economics, privacy laws, disability rights and the march against institutional care the hospital came under one expensive investigation after another. Hildegard (1098 to 1179 A.D.) of Bingen, Germany was a truly remarkable woman. Not only a devout nun, she was a composer, author, theologian, lexicographer (wrote a dictionary) and expert in pre-modern medicine. She advocated such things as a good diet, quietness, sex, liquids (deep sleep), fresh air and sunlight. She was well known for her healing powers using tinctures, herbs, and precious stones.As a result of the enlightenment and the scientific revolution that followed in the 18th century the system of fours that had been around for centuries was finally & totally discredited. We now know that the body is not healthy through a balance of four humors but by respecting its remarkable composition of living cells. But the question that arose in Dr Sweet's mind was whether or not one could learn anything from Hildegard's practice. Could Hildegard's approach to the patient be usefully applied to any of Dr Sweet's patients in Laguna Honda Hospital?God's Hotel is a gripping book and a must read for all health care and allied professionals. In the light of the NHS scandal at the Mid Staffordshire Hospital and the subsequent report by Robert Francis QC, it is also a must read for politicians and NHS Managers! It is also a good read for anyone who is interested in getting back the balance in their troubled lives through societal issues or sickness.

Reviewer: L F
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Really enjoyed this memoir of a Dr’s personal and professional journey. It’s so refreshing to hear from someone who has wrestled through what works and doesn’t with both modern and pre-modern methods and ideologies. A reminder that progress doesn’t have to throw out the baby with the bath water as far as what has worked before. I believe we are coming to realize as a society that maybe industrialism and efficiency have taken as much as they have given. (Some reviews had issue with her using patient and colleague names in the book - she does make a note that all the names she used were pseudonyms. It’s important to read the whole book!).