Because of the COVID pandemic, the name Tony Fauci has become incredibly politicized. To some, he is a villain who took over the country through a pandemic. They cynically blame him for all of America’s woes from the coronavirus. To others, he’s a hero for speaking life-conveying truth in a public-health crisis when most others equivocated. I’m in the latter camp, and this book, a memoir mixed with an apologia, certainly explains his perspective on this important history. Politics is driven by emotion, but this autobiography is not. Superb clinical reasoning with an eye to public health drives his narrative.
Tony Fauci comes across as a bit of a workaholic – a claim that I doubt he’d deny. In his defense, his time at work provided him a globally unique position to save others’ lives with HIV and other infectious diseases. He advised American presidents from both parties, and he tried to say apolitical until, well, everyone else wanted to make him into a political figure. Again, it’s up to the reader to judge the credibility of how he managed that role.
My biggest unexpected takeaway from this book is that George W. Bush seems to be his favorite president he served under. Of course, with W’s leadership, Fauci helped to design PEPFAR, the huge HIV/AIDS package aimed at squashing the virus in impoverished African and Asian countries. PEPFAR has become perhaps the excelling victory of #43’s administration and certainly one of the most effective public-health legislations in human history.
Despite his protestations of medical integrity, Tony Fauci will remain a political figure in the eyes of so many. That’s unfortunate. In this memoir, he comes across as an incredibly decent man grounded in the social-justice faith of the Roman Catholic church. His biomedical reasoning surpasses, and as one involved in biomedical research, I learned a lot that I can apply to my life. Above all, I took away to always speak the truth as empathetically as possible and be willing to live with the fallout. Tony Fauci’s life spent doing just that inspired and challenged me.
On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service
By Anthony Fauci
Narrated by Anthony Facuci
Copyright (c) 2024
Penguin Audio
ASIN B0CV5ZR4C9
Length: 19:12
Genre: Autobiography
www.amazon.com