Dottoressa: An American Doctor in Rome

“Wise and witty.”―Publishers Weekly

“A charming story well told.”―Kirkus Reviews

“Smart, funny, charming . . . full of astute insights into the way Italy works.”―Alexander Stille

“A wonderfully fun read.”―Dr. Robert Sapolsky

"As funny as it is poignant. A must read for anyone who thinks they understand medicine, Italy, or humanity.”―Barbie Latza Nadeau

After completing her medical training in New York, Susan Levenstein set off for a one year adventure in Rome. Forty years later, she is still practicing medicine in the Eternal City. In Dottoressa: An American Doctor in Rome Levenstein writes, with love and exasperation, about navigating her career through the renowned Italian tangle of brilliance and ineptitude, sexism and tolerance, rigidity and chaos.

Part memoir―starting with her epic quest for an Italian medical license―and part portrait of Italy from a unique point of view, Dottoressa is packed with vignettes that illuminate the national differences in character, lifestyle, health, and health care between her two countries. Levenstein, who has been called “the wittiest internist on earth,” covers everything from hookup culture to neighborhood madmen, Italian hands-off medical training, bidets, the ironies of expatriation, and why Italians always pay their doctor’s bills.

Susan Levenstein moved to Rome in 1978 after finishing her medical training in New York. She has been practicing primary care internal medicine there ever since, treating a clientele that’s featured Roman auto mechanics and British ambassadors, Indonesian art restorers and Filipina maids, Russian poets and Ethiopian priests. She is a graduate of Harvard University and Mount Sinai School of Medicine and the co-author of Messages from Home.