On the Ragged Edge of Medicine offers a unique and personal glimpse into a medical practice for the homeless and urban poor in Portland, Oregon. Told through fifteen patient vignettes and drawn from the author’s decades of experience on the front lines, this revealing memoir illuminates the impact of poverty on the delivery of health services and the ways in which people adapt and survive (or don’t survive) in conditions of abuse and deprivation. Kullberg’s stories show the direct and sometimes devastating effects of poverty on personal health, poignantly demonstrating that medicine is as much a social enterprise as a scientific one.

On the Ragged Edge of Medicine: Doctoring Among the Dispossessed

Biographies & Memoirs

Kullberg, Patricia

Professionals & Academics

Oregon State University Press

A woman caught in the whipsaw of history. Girl in the River is a portrait of the intimate lives of women during one of the most corrupt periods in Portland history. It's an unflinching look at the power dynamics of sex. A glimpse into the working life of a call girl. An improbable love story. The tale of post-war assaults on reproductive rights. And a tribute to two remarkable and remarkably different women who shaped the lives of Portlanders during those tumultuous times: Dr. Ruth Barnett and Mayor Dorothy Lee.

Girl in the River

Literature & Fiction

Genre Fiction

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

A working girl's tale of desperation, desire and defiance . . . On the eve of World War II, Portland has fallen into the hands of gangsters. Newly orphaned, Mae Rose wanders the rain-stained streets alone, on the lam from a knife-wielding pimp and mustering her own worst impulses to survive. As Mae rises in Portland's gritty sex industry, she's pursued by a district attorney who seeks to snare her for more personal reasons. In the city's nightspots, the glamorous Dr. Ruth Barnett turns heads, while by day she operated a wildly successful abortion service. She provides the refuge Mae has been seeking. At war's end, both women are caught in the cross hairs of Portland's anti-vice crusade and the women's survival depends on their ability to outsmart the cops and politicians who no longer protect them. Girl in the River is a portrait of the intimate lives of women during one of the most corrupt periods in Portland history. It's an unflinching look at the power dynamics of sex, a glimpse into the work life of a call girl, an improbable love story and the tale of post-war assaults on reproductive rights. It's a tribute as well to two women who shaped the lives of Portlanders during those tumultuous times: Dr. Ruth Barnett, premier abortionist of the Pacific Northwest and queen of Portland's nightlife; and Dottie "Do-good" Lee, tireless anti-vice crusader and Portland's first lady mayor.

Bygone Era Books

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Kullberg, Patricia. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Kullberg, Patricia