Nick Trout is a practicing veterinarian surgeon in Boston who actually met the famous Yorkshire country vet and author James Herriot. Some of my favorite books to share out loud with friends and family have been the tales of Dr. Herriott. Pick up a copy of All Creatures Great and Small if you haven’t before or if you are familiar with how funny and poignant his stories were when he wrote them in the 1970′s.

The stories Nick Trout shares in his first book Tell Me Where It Hurts may not be quite as poignant, but they do give us a great picture of the life of a twenty-first century veterinarian. We see what a single day is like in a Boston animal hospital beginning with being rooted out of bed for a 2:00am emergency surgery on a “bloat” by a resident out 0f her league. We follow the decisions that have to be made regarding high tech, expensive procedures that equal comparable human procedures such as joint replacements, chemotherapy and acl repairs (one of the most common problems)

There is much insight and humor in this memoir of a surgeon who has much compassion for the animals so many of us cherish.