After a Fall

For renowned sociologist and writer Laurel Richardson, a broken foot led to a month as a patient in an extended care facility. In this compelling description of her lived experience in one of these institutions, she addresses key questions of health delivery and behavior: nurses who can be angelic or cruel, institutional policies often structured to maximize income over care, and patients whose behavior often does not mirror the severity of their condition. She points to inequality of treatment of patients of different ethnicities, genders, and classes, and to an underclass of health workers—often poor immigrants—whose own personal and familial problems mirror those of their patients. Enfolded in a captivating narrative of life in the facility, Richardson’s book is a revealing literary autoethnography designed for social scientists, health care professionals, and students alike.