Overcoming: Lessons in Triumphing Over Adversity and the Power of Our Common Humanity

Winner of The 2023 American Book Fest Best Book Award for Nonfiction: Inspirational

Twenty inspiring profiles of men and women who’ve defied the odds to overcome adversity

The coronavirus COVID-19 has changed our lives forever, confronting us with an adversity like none we have known in our lifetimes.

How do we cope? Where can we find the resilience to overcome the changes forced upon us? What might our future look like?

The answers lie in Overcoming and the lessons we can learn from everyday heroes who found the strength to persevere through life crises that threatened to overwhelm them, just as we feel overwhelmed today. Groundbreaking physician Dr. Augustus White III, no stranger to adversity himself, has fashioned an essential manual on not only surviving in a post-coronavirus world, but even thriving in it, as those in this book have.

• Like Herman Williams, a doctor on the verge of realizing his dream only to see it dashed forever, forcing him to find a new and greater one.
• Or Dr. Ann Hagan Webb, a victim of sexual abuse as a young girl who now counsels other victims, both young and old.
• Or Josh Perry, born with Down syndrome, who didn’t let that stop him from becoming a professional Hollywood actor.
• Or Krystal Cantu, who overcame the devastating loss of an arm in an accident to pursue a career in fitness and physical training.
• Or Mangok Bol, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan who survived and built a new life for himself in the United States.
• Or Heather Marini, who turned a blind eye to stereotypes in becoming the only woman serving as a position coach in Division 1 college football.

These stories and more will inspire you, providing hope that no matter how bleak and dark things seem, the light is always shining somewhere close by.

Overcoming will teach all of us how to find it.

Dr. Augustus White III has been called “the Jackie Robinson of orthopedics.” He was the first African-American medical student at Stanford, the first African-American surgical resident at Yale, the first African-American professor of surgery at Yale, and the first African-American chief of service at a Harvard teaching hospital. He is professor of orthopedics and the Ellen & Melvin Gordon Distinguished Professor of Medical Education at Harvard, as well as a past professor in the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology. Dr. White has pioneered the movement in U.S. and Canadian medical schools for culturally competent care and is a leading voice in the medical community’s ongoing efforts to address the significant disparities in health and healthcare suffered by African Americans and other minorities.