In "Diva," Rafael Campo brings to life the issues that color the world today with bold and touching lines of poetry and prose. Campo's palpable language not only invites but envelopes the reader into his world of pain and anguish, loves and passions-- and the everyday happenstances of life in America and abroad. A doctor by profession, Campo stitches the raw realities of the medical world with the ever-impending emotional tugging that comes along with the social stigmas associated with incurable illnesses such as AIDS. Campo delicately treads on the balance between experience and observation, leading the reader to a heightened awareness of the world around her/him and an empathetic eye to those who share it.

_The Gila Monster and Its Allies; The Relationship, Habits, and Behavior of the Lizards of the Family Helodermatidae_ is the classic work on the topic. This reprint of the 1956 edition is updated with a new preface. It contains the ecology, Natural History, morphology, and complex behaviors of these unique venomous lizards of America, Mexico, and Central America. Illustrated with B/W photos, graphs, maps, and drawings.

As a pre-med student, this book caught my interest because of its focus on the side of medicine that is internal to the physician: the medicine that works in a physician's heart and mind. Campo gives a poetic and well-constructed testimony of his struggles and triumphs in reconciling his personality with the world around him and the difference between simply wanting to practice medicine and having a "desire to heal." I definitely recommend this to anyone with an intense desire to see the humanity of a field that is so often seen as something sterile and impersonal.

I almost didn't read this book. I was expecting a discourse on the healing power of the creative arts as an alternative therapy in medicine. Campo may write about that elsewhere, but not here. If anything, the book concerns the power of poetry for the physician in need of healing.

Campo's book is part memoir, part polemic. Chiefly, it recounts his struggles to forge a single identiy as doctor, poet, Latino, and gay man. He articulates with considerable and painful clarity the many ways in which these separate identities have been in conflict. They seem finally to come together in his role as a physician to AIDS patients. But even in that there is conflict, both with the devastating nature of the disease and the efforts of managed health care to diminish his best efforts to fulfill his calling as a doctor.

As memoir, his book retraces the steps of his life journey into his profession (at the time of the book's writing he is still a young doctor, in his early 30s). We meet his Cuban-American parents, learn of his middle class suburban background, and hear of his struggles of sexual identity, which produce in him intense shame, anger and fear. We follow him to Amherst, where he meets and falls in love with a fellow med student who becomes his life partner, and from there to residency in UCSF hospital in San Francisco. He describes his bout with suspected cancer, discovered after a skiing accident. And he tells of a patient, Gary, dying of AIDS, who teaches him much about being both a doctor and a poet.

As polemic, his book argues against homophobia (even as he overcomes it in himself) and its contribution to the continuing health crisis for gay men. He argues that the catch phrase "safe sex" diminishes the fragile self-esteem and challenges the identities of gay men. He argues that modern medicine, with its reliance on technology and pharmaceuticals and insistence on professional objectivity, robs young doctors of the compassion, empathy, and desire that drew them into the profession in the first place -- and thus makes them less effective in the delivery of health care. And he argues for the legitimacy of poetry as both a practice and a guiding metaphor for the role of physician. He notes that poetry and healing are both arts; one informs and supports the other.

I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the practice of modern medicine, the training and self-education of physicians, and journeys of self-discovery. It is especially affirming in its embrace of same-sex affection, love, and passion. As companion volumes, I recommend two other books: Richard Rodriguez' memoir "Hunger of Memory" and Abraham Verghese's account of his experience as an AIDS doctor, "My Own Country."

Eloquent, honest, beautiful. It's obvious Campo is a poet at heart, and that he brings his poet's sensibility to his life as a physician. Although the details of this book are personal and particular (his Cuban heritage, life as a gay man, experiences caring for AIDS patients at the height of the epidemic), Campo's observations are universal.

I read Campo's poetry before I knew he was a doctor; therefore, I hope he forgives me for thinking of him as a poet first, a doctor second. But this eloquent book--and indeed, Campo's life--exemplifies the benefits of accessing both sides of one's brain, the creative as well as the analytical/scientific. At times soaring with hopefulness and at others questioning the purpose of life and pondering the darkest moments of despair, Campo writes passionately and intimately about his role in the healing arts. This calling is informed as much by his poetic genius and ability to come face to face with raw emotion, unflinchingly, as it is by his doctoral training.

Campo writes powerfully about AIDS and our relationship to the plague in a way one seldom reads: with practical guidelines, not moralistic platitudes and empty slogans. His essay "Imagining Unmanaging Health Care" is worth the price of the book.

An excellent volume of essays, full of warmth, compassion, and most of all, humanity. Campo has truly become the "warrior-physician" he aspired to be--let's hope managed care doesn't drive him from the profession.

Dr. Campo provides a sensitive and sometimes provocative look at the life of a gay, minority, physician who treats patients suffering from the plague of the 90s, AIDS. Moreover, Dr. Campo, a true humanist and poet, discusses how his passion for medicine and writing have oftentimes seemed at odds with each other. He was able to deal with many, many issues in his life and to use both medicine and writing to heal himself, his patients, and, I believe, some of his readers. He is courageous, too, just by writing this kind of book. I couldn't have imagined a Yale-educated physician acting so "un-Ivy." But, Dr. Campo has spoken out to describe, in vivid detail, his love of medicine and of words and, most importantly, of his patients.

This book is a wonderful, wonderful read.

The poems in this collection are powerful and intimate. Although the organization of the book could be tighter, Compo's poem address the devastating effects of AIDS and cancer on patients. Compo brings the reader into the world of the sick and reminds me that beyong our own fear of cancer and AIDS is the power of empathy. When Compo shows me the raw emotions of an woman on the edge of death, I am reminded of life and what it means to live