Ofri has finished her training as a physician and is learning through practice to become a more rounded healer. The book opens with the tables turned: Ofri has to enter her own hospital as a patient. She experiences the very real sense of invasion and panic that routinely visits her patients. These fifteen intertwined tales include that of a man who has lost the will to live, and she too comes dangerously close to concluding that he has nothing to live for; patient whose difficult decision to have an abortion highlights the vulnerabilities of doctor and patient alike; a patient whose physical and emotional abuse she can't possibly heal, so she must settle on treating the least of her patient's problems; and a concluding chapter in which Dr. Ofri's touch is the last in a woman's long life.