After a public defence of three short-listed books and a week-long online voting period, Trent students, faculty and staff have selected Vincent Lam’s Giller Prize-winning book, Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures, to be read by all new Trent students as part of Trent Reads 2013. 

“I encourage everyone at Trent to read Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures”, said Dr. Jocelyn Aubrey, associate dean of undergraduate studies and chair of the Trent Reads committee. “As every good book should, this one draws you into the lives of the protagonists and you feel as though you have come to know and understand them very well by the time you finish the book. The challenges, excitement, frustrations and pain experienced by four medical students as they become full-fledged physicians provide a rich basis for the many conversations that I hope to have with others at Trent, especially our new students arriving in the fall.”

To help members of the Trent community choose their favourite book, a Battle of the Books event was held at Trent on February 27, during which audience members listened to three champions defend their choice for the book new students will read and talk about in September 2013. 

Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures is just the book to bring the University community together says nominator Professor Joel Baetz. “At its heart is a general understanding of medicine (and by implication science) that rings true for me. The book begins with an epigraph from Sir William Osler, ‘Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability’ – and the short stories tend to prove Osler right. These doctors practice medicine; they try it out. They fail. Their attempts to rescue and heal, while noble, are occasionally frustrated or frustrating. And maybe it's because I'm an English professor, but I think that is a powerful idea, a reminder of the value and the limits of scientific knowledge.”

Trent Oshawa student Jeffrey Barrett defended Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures at the Battle of the Books. “It proposes two crucial lessons for first-year students. Firstly, it suggests that learning is a process filled with challenges. Secondly, it affirms the adage the more you know, the more you realize you do not know. First-year university students will identify with Bloodletting because it acclimatizes them to the process of learning, which necessarily requires them to adapt to unfamiliar surroundings. As a result, the book’s characters are in a perpetual cycle of transition.”

Riveting and precise, Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures looks with rigorous honesty at the specificities of the lives of doctors and their patients and brings us to a deeper understanding of the challenges and temptations that surge around us all.

Toronto-based emergency surgeon Dr. Vincent Lam’s intricate stories are connected through the relationships that develop among a group of young doctors as they move from the challenges of med school to the intense world of emergency rooms, evac missions, and terrifying new viruses.

Trent Reads, an initiative launched in 2008, is designed to bring the Trent community together by creating a common ground for discussion. It also aims to give new students an academic experience that they can all be a part of before they actually begin classes. Joseph Boyden’s award-winning novel Three Day Road was chosen for the inaugural Trent Reads in 2008, followed by Lawrence Hill’s acclaimed The Book of Negroes in 2009, Malcom Gladwell’s Outliers in 2010, Eden Robinson’s Monkey Beach in 2011, and Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants in 2012.

All new students registered at Trent for the 2013-2014 academic year will read Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures prior to arriving in September. During Introductory Seminar Week (ISW) in Peterborough, seminars consisting of small groups of 20 or fewer students led by Trent faculty from a variety of departments and programs, will provide a forum for new students to discuss the book. In Oshawa, discussion seminars will take place during the first few weeks of the fall term.

Other short-listed books chosen by the selection committee for engaging and substantive content were The Game by Ken Dryden and Midnight at the Dragon Café by Judy Fong Bates.

For more information about Trent Reads and to view video clips from the Battle of the Books visit the Trent Reads website, www.trentu.ca/trentreads or contact: Jocelyn Aubrey, associate dean of Undergraduate Studies and chair of the Trent Reads Committee, Trent University, 705-748-1011 ext. 6080