Son and Heir Author:Edith P. Begner East Side General is a busy and fashionable New York hospital; the doctors who serve there are, for the most part, hard-working, dedicated men. But they are human, too, and matters of life and death sometimes take second place to rivalry and personal ambition... — Such was the case of Neil Wendling. At forty-seven he had been at East Side General... more » for over fifteen years, serving as assistant to the eminent surgeon, Dr. Victor Sprague. For as long as his associates could remember he had been Sprague's uncritical apostle,letting his admiration blind him to the fact that he was slowly being victimized: working extra hours, turning over wealthy patients to Sprague, postponing his own operations to accommodate his chief, taking over endless classes and clinics.
When a serious accident lands Sprague in his own hospital for many months Neil at last has a chance to stand on his feet - a chance he nearly wrecks because of widely pressure and the tug of old loyalties. Each step he takes toward confidence and independence only antagonizes the convalescing Sprague, until the young man is forced to see his superior as he really is: a man who will stop at nothing in order to humiliate him and reduce him again to subservience.
Before Son and Heir reaches its dramatic climax we have had a realistic and revealing look into hospital life and explored the delicate questions of medical ethics, as well as the unusual challenges and frustrations of the healing profession.
Physician's wives, especially, will recognize Mrs. Begner's warmly accurate picture of a busy doctor's home life and his unique relationships with those he loves. Herself the wife of a prominent surgeon she knows whereof she writes, and has turned this insight into a novel of rare depth and perception.« less