Chasing Rabbits by Rodolfo Del Toro
Rudy Dell, a fourth-year medical student at the top of his class, is looking forward to a cushy clerkship at an outpatient dermatology clinic. He’s suddenly reassigned to a pediatric oncology department, however, likely because he’s paired with his best friend, Mike Davenport, the son of a billionaire in the medical insurance business roundly hated by doctors everywhere. Rudy is quickly thrust into an emotionally charged environment—all about him are children struggling to survive, flanked by their agonized parents. He befriends Maria, a 9-year-old girl in the final throes of leukemia who has no family and is a ward of the state; sadly, she seems destined to die alone. Rudy has always been a competitive student, one who routinely sees his professional commitments in careerist terms, but now he’s profoundly confronted by the obligations of his chosen vocation. “Up to this moment, everything had been a challenge. He had learned to see patients as tests of his abilities. Rudy saw them not as people, but as problems to be solved, unconsciously rationalizing away the human factor, the empathy.” The author sensitively depicts Rudy’s gathering misgivings about his choice to become a doctor and his first confrontation with genuine self-doubt. The most memorable aspect of this poignant novel, though, is the characterization of children like Maria, facing death with almost preternatural courage, often more worried about their parents than their own fate. This is a sad but hopeful book, one that impressively captures the complexity of children’s lives.
A haunting tale that is both despairing and inspiriting.
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Author Bio:
After over twenty five years as one, Rodo never intended to be a doctor. On the contrary, during his early teenage years, he dreamt of becoming a musician, screenwriter, or maybe a film director.
It was late in high school, while performing community service (a school requirement, not a punishment, some other community service was indeed punishment; it was a strict Catholic high school) that he was exposed to the medical field. Assigned to help a resident doctor perform his tasks at a local hospital, Rodo unexpectedly felt great satisfaction from helping others.
Making an uncharacteristically mature decision for a teenager, Rodo accepted the challenge, moving ahead after high school and spending the next twelve years between college, medical school, and residency.
Despite having a good professional life and a fantastic family, he felt an urge to do something different, to create. So, in 2015, after a particularly interesting 2014, he decided to sit down to write.
Unbeknownst to him, it would take four years to write and publish his first work, Departure Point, a niche piece. It’s a story he is quite proud of, despite the fact that he concedes that it is plagued with far too many mistakes.
Nevertheless, writing and publishing was a rewarding learning experience involving hard lessons learned, helping him realize how little he knew and still had to learn about writing and publishing. This knowledge, or rather lack thereof, helped him approach the writing of his second book, Chasing Rabbits. Not only did it give him newfound determination, it also allowed him to better navigate the road, or at least avoid the previous pitfalls.
Chasing Rabbits was published in March 2020, and despite the challenges 2020 brought forth, it has received great reviews. Today, Rodo continues to write and get the word out on his works, when time permits it. Publishing a set of short stories unimaginatively titled Six Short Stories on late 2021, with Surviving Jane, being published on March of 2024.
When away from the word processor, he spends his professional time between his private practice and a part-time medical school teaching appointment. He cherishes the time he gets to spend with his wife and daughters, as well as the dog he emphatically asked them not to get! Funny enough the dog is sleeping on his lap as he writes this. Every so often, he steals time to pursue his writing, or what his wife believes are very unhealthy obsessions with electric guitars and old Land Rover Defenders!