The Embroidered Towel

In "The Embroidered Towel" by Mikhail Bulgakov the young doctor arrives at his new post after a bone-jarring 24-hour wagon ride. He frets about how young he looks, and feels intimidated by the well-stocked pharmacy and medical library his predecessor has left behind. He also worries that he'll have to treat a hernia and won't know what to do - this neurosis is a running joke in the book's initial stories. Mikhail Bulgakov wrote the stories in "A Country Doctor's Notebook" circa 1925-27, about a young doctor's practice and plight in rural Russia, they don't read outdated, musty or strange today. Instead, they evoke archetypal situations we experience in contemporary medical storytelling.