No More Patients (Paperback or Softback)

Dr. Norah Waters is approaching sixty-five and eager to retire, but complications keep disrupting her plans. New physicians in her practice aren’t acclimating well. Patients are going off the rails. Unwelcome exes and toxic former students reappear. And her ninety-one-year-old mother, Vivian Waters, has grown emotionally needy. 

Once a free spirit, Vivian celebrated at Woodstock in her thirties and Burning Man in her eighties. Now she spends her time feuding with Marianne Dunwitty, her new rival from the Scrabble Klub. To help resolve her identity crisis, Vivian begins recording reflections on her life, revealing a deep despair that drives her to take on the Klub members, scorn the new cloud-watching man next door, and snoop into a suspected neighborhood homicide. 

Norah and Vivian must find ways to deal with their out-of-balance lives, and—most importantly—each other. Picking up where Out of Patients left off, No More Patients is a heartfelt, humorous sequel that stands on its own, about the struggles of healing both patients and relationships alike.

Sandra Miller, MD, is a retired academic family physician. Her essays and poetry have been published in PULSE: Voices from the Heart of Medicine, Embark, Under the Sun, and the New England Journal of Medicine, among others. After a long career in Arizona, she now lives in Oregon near family, practicing her favorite hobbies of volcanology and paleontology.