---
product_id: 221587
title: "Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital (ALA Notable Books for Adults)"
price: "197.66 DT"
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reviews_count: 13
url: https://www.desertcart.tn/products/221587-five-days-at-memorial-life-and-death-in-a-storm
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---

# Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalism Explores complex medical ethics & legal dilemmas In-depth Hurricane Katrina disaster analysis Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital (ALA Notable Books for Adults)

**Price:** 197.66 DT
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## Summary

> ⚡ Dive into the storm where truth, ethics, and survival collide!

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- **What is this?** Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital (ALA Notable Books for Adults)
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## Key Features

- • **Provokes Critical Reflection:** Challenges your views on healthcare, morality, and disaster preparedness.
- • **Unrivaled Investigative Depth:** Sheri Fink’s 6-year deep dive into Memorial Medical Center’s crisis reveals untold truths.
- • **Ethical Storm at the Frontline:** A gripping exploration of life-and-death decisions under extreme disaster conditions.
- • **Top-Ranked Disaster Relief Read:** Ranked #3 in Disaster Relief books—essential for understanding crisis management.
- • **Pulitzer Prize-Winning Narrative:** Award-winning storytelling that blends medical insight with human drama.

## Overview

Five Days at Memorial is Sheri Fink’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative account of the harrowing five days at a New Orleans hospital during Hurricane Katrina. This landmark book exposes the ethical, legal, and human challenges faced by exhausted caregivers forced to make impossible decisions amid chaos, offering a profound look at disaster response and medical morality.

## Description

Pulitzer Prize winner Sheri Fink’s landmark investigation of patient deaths at a New Orleans hospital ravaged by Hurricane Katrina – and her suspenseful portrayal of the quest for truth and justice. In the tradition of the best investigative journalism, physician and reporter Sheri Fink reconstructs 5 days at Memorial Medical Center and draws the reader into the lives of those who struggled mightily to survive and maintain life amid chaos. After Katrina struck and the floodwaters rose, the power failed, and the heat climbed, exhausted caregivers chose to designate certain patients last for rescue. Months later, several of those caregivers faced criminal allegations that they deliberately injected numerous patients with drugs to hasten their deaths. Five Days at Memorial , the culmination of six years of reporting, unspools the mystery of what happened in those days, bringing the reader into a hospital fighting for its life and into a conversation about the most terrifying form of health care rationing. In a voice at once involving and fair, masterful and intimate, Fink exposes the hidden dilemmas of end-of-life care and reveals just how ill-prepared we are for the impact of large-scale disasters—and how we can do better. A remarkable book, engrossing from start to finish, Five Days at Memorial radically transforms your understanding of human nature in crisis. One of The New York Times ' Best Ten Books of the Year

Review: A morally complex and divisive read - SPOILERS IN REVIEW - Simplistically, this is a story of how a hospital full of doctors, family and patients dealt with and sustained through Hurricane Katrina. However, the story that focuses mainly on Dr. Anna Pou is a moral conundrum that is as divisive a subject as I can imagine. Sherri Fink treads through public files, personal testimonies and witness accounts to bring us a wide look at what took place at a New Orleans hospital as chaos ensued and governmental and corporate response languished. This lack of emergency response seems to be caused by a deadly combination of negligence and incompetence by the staff of the hospital and everyone they seemed to reach out to. Consequently, important decisions had to be made under stress , exhaustion and unbearable heat: Who among us gets to leave/receive critical care first? The oldest? The sickest? The ones with the best chance to survive? The ones with best quality of life chance? Triage was set up and days passed by slowly as people's lives hung in the balance. Thus enters Dr. Anna Pou. Fink goes into incredible detail of her background and character and gives us a sympathetic/ hard working, no-nonsense type of doctor who delegates authority amongst the nurses and charges at Memorial. Ultimately, it seems according to the book, that Dr.Pou would make important decisions to euthanize certain patients in what seems like a badly-kept secret that morally divided the staff. This is the central focus of the book and how you feel about Dr. Pou's actions will polarize the reader and have you second-guessing your original feelings. I must say, immediately I felt that euthanasia was completely acceptable. I believe that if somebody is to the point where pain and suffering renders somebody to the point that they are alive in the most basic definition only, I feel it acceptable for them to want to end their life. And, I did indeed feel this way throughout the book about Dr. Pou until you realize that these particular patients never consented. And there in lies the rub: euthanasia should never be put in the hands of the doctor without consent of the patient or family. Furthermore, in the case of Mrs. Burgess and Emmett Everett, not only did they not wish to die, they very much wanted to live. The fact that they were killed on the same day the mass evacuation was taking place only makes it more the tragedy. The second half of the book focuses on gathering evidence , the politics of prosecuting staff that risked their lives and otherwise behaved heroically during a disaster that most , including myself, got to watch from a distance. It's riveting and I think Fink presents every possible ethical possibility on what happened and what COULD have happened. I feel like she was objective and fair and if anything, only really painted LA attorney general in a negative light. It's no doubt controversial and there seems to be two camps: those that think that Dr. Pou is an amazing doctor who appears to have killed (with help of other staff, mind you) patients, even if ending their suffering was paramount in her mind. The other half is those that take Fink's reporting as factual. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between , but to those who deride Fink as trying to make a buck by sensationalizing , you have to consider both sides. Dr. Pou obviously has a lot to lose, including her freedom, if these accounts are accurate. She would literally have gotten away with murder. I don't, however, think she meant to kill with malice but rather with compassion. What does make me lose respect for her , though, is her continuing to lie about small details to exaggerate the conditions of the hospital ( lack of water, food, helicopters not being able to fly at night). If there was more of a consensus, or even if there was a moral consensus taken before she made the injections, I'd sleep better. Unfortunately for the victims, it seems like their deaths were carried out clandestinely. Meanwhile, their was an equal conspiracy of disapprovers who did nothing but express outrage over the possible euthanasia amongst themselves while not lifting a finger to stop it. I could go on and on about this with points both for and against all parties involved and not come within a mile of satisfaction. It's an astounding read that will test your preconceived notions of right and wrong and I'm not quite sure I'm qualified to judge anybody during a situation as hellish as this.
Review: Very thorough work, but... - I do feel the novel was well researched and well written. The author leaves the reader to draw his/her own conclusion, having been presented with the hospital scenario, as well as the research results. I hesitate to say "facts", because - are they really? One thing for sure - most everyone involved had their own agenda. Who is to say which of the personages in this book had the purest motivations? It seemed most everyone had at least something to lose or at least some motivation to be less than fully revealing in the investigation. And how about those with a political axe to grind? Whose testimony or interview could the reader really trust? And perhaps that is one of the author's intentions for her audience. An aura of suspicion.... I learned quite a bit about the hospitals, post Katrina operations. I did lose a lot of respect for the corporations or public bodies owning them. Where were the evacuation and emergency operation plans - at the very least, those should have been in place, even if they would not have worked. And what about Nagin's mandate for the hospitals to remain open while everyone else had to evacuate - how shortsighted. Why would Gov Blanco refuse to declare martial law? But that seems to be the tale of the Katrina fiasco -people improperly prepared, shortsighted and downright negligent in many instances. Did the book help me decide how I felt about the guilt of the medical personnel involved? Yes, it did. I will leave readers to draw their own conclusions. It is sad that so many peoples' lives were damaged - those that died at the hospital as well as those investigated.And now that this book is out, it opens the wound afresh for them. The book serves a purpose but exacts a cost - again. Update: After checking out some additional websites, and becoming a bit more enlightened, I withdraw my first comment about the book being well researched. Perhaps I should have asked "Are we even sure the author had pristine motives?"

## Features

- Used Book in Good Condition

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #127,650 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #3 in Disaster Relief (Books) #101 in History of Medicine (Books) #1,141 in U.S. State & Local History |
| Customer Reviews | 4.4 out of 5 stars 4,591 Reviews |

## Images

![Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital (ALA Notable Books for Adults) - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81tlilwv1PL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A morally complex and divisive read - SPOILERS IN REVIEW
*by N***R on January 27, 2014*

Simplistically, this is a story of how a hospital full of doctors, family and patients dealt with and sustained through Hurricane Katrina. However, the story that focuses mainly on Dr. Anna Pou is a moral conundrum that is as divisive a subject as I can imagine. Sherri Fink treads through public files, personal testimonies and witness accounts to bring us a wide look at what took place at a New Orleans hospital as chaos ensued and governmental and corporate response languished. This lack of emergency response seems to be caused by a deadly combination of negligence and incompetence by the staff of the hospital and everyone they seemed to reach out to. Consequently, important decisions had to be made under stress , exhaustion and unbearable heat: Who among us gets to leave/receive critical care first? The oldest? The sickest? The ones with the best chance to survive? The ones with best quality of life chance? Triage was set up and days passed by slowly as people's lives hung in the balance. Thus enters Dr. Anna Pou. Fink goes into incredible detail of her background and character and gives us a sympathetic/ hard working, no-nonsense type of doctor who delegates authority amongst the nurses and charges at Memorial. Ultimately, it seems according to the book, that Dr.Pou would make important decisions to euthanize certain patients in what seems like a badly-kept secret that morally divided the staff. This is the central focus of the book and how you feel about Dr. Pou's actions will polarize the reader and have you second-guessing your original feelings. I must say, immediately I felt that euthanasia was completely acceptable. I believe that if somebody is to the point where pain and suffering renders somebody to the point that they are alive in the most basic definition only, I feel it acceptable for them to want to end their life. And, I did indeed feel this way throughout the book about Dr. Pou until you realize that these particular patients never consented. And there in lies the rub: euthanasia should never be put in the hands of the doctor without consent of the patient or family. Furthermore, in the case of Mrs. Burgess and Emmett Everett, not only did they not wish to die, they very much wanted to live. The fact that they were killed on the same day the mass evacuation was taking place only makes it more the tragedy. The second half of the book focuses on gathering evidence , the politics of prosecuting staff that risked their lives and otherwise behaved heroically during a disaster that most , including myself, got to watch from a distance. It's riveting and I think Fink presents every possible ethical possibility on what happened and what COULD have happened. I feel like she was objective and fair and if anything, only really painted LA attorney general in a negative light. It's no doubt controversial and there seems to be two camps: those that think that Dr. Pou is an amazing doctor who appears to have killed (with help of other staff, mind you) patients, even if ending their suffering was paramount in her mind. The other half is those that take Fink's reporting as factual. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in between , but to those who deride Fink as trying to make a buck by sensationalizing , you have to consider both sides. Dr. Pou obviously has a lot to lose, including her freedom, if these accounts are accurate. She would literally have gotten away with murder. I don't, however, think she meant to kill with malice but rather with compassion. What does make me lose respect for her , though, is her continuing to lie about small details to exaggerate the conditions of the hospital ( lack of water, food, helicopters not being able to fly at night). If there was more of a consensus, or even if there was a moral consensus taken before she made the injections, I'd sleep better. Unfortunately for the victims, it seems like their deaths were carried out clandestinely. Meanwhile, their was an equal conspiracy of disapprovers who did nothing but express outrage over the possible euthanasia amongst themselves while not lifting a finger to stop it. I could go on and on about this with points both for and against all parties involved and not come within a mile of satisfaction. It's an astounding read that will test your preconceived notions of right and wrong and I'm not quite sure I'm qualified to judge anybody during a situation as hellish as this.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Very thorough work, but...
*by C***M on May 7, 2014*

I do feel the novel was well researched and well written. The author leaves the reader to draw his/her own conclusion, having been presented with the hospital scenario, as well as the research results. I hesitate to say "facts", because - are they really? One thing for sure - most everyone involved had their own agenda. Who is to say which of the personages in this book had the purest motivations? It seemed most everyone had at least something to lose or at least some motivation to be less than fully revealing in the investigation. And how about those with a political axe to grind? Whose testimony or interview could the reader really trust? And perhaps that is one of the author's intentions for her audience. An aura of suspicion.... I learned quite a bit about the hospitals, post Katrina operations. I did lose a lot of respect for the corporations or public bodies owning them. Where were the evacuation and emergency operation plans - at the very least, those should have been in place, even if they would not have worked. And what about Nagin's mandate for the hospitals to remain open while everyone else had to evacuate - how shortsighted. Why would Gov Blanco refuse to declare martial law? But that seems to be the tale of the Katrina fiasco -people improperly prepared, shortsighted and downright negligent in many instances. Did the book help me decide how I felt about the guilt of the medical personnel involved? Yes, it did. I will leave readers to draw their own conclusions. It is sad that so many peoples' lives were damaged - those that died at the hospital as well as those investigated.And now that this book is out, it opens the wound afresh for them. The book serves a purpose but exacts a cost - again. Update: After checking out some additional websites, and becoming a bit more enlightened, I withdraw my first comment about the book being well researched. Perhaps I should have asked "Are we even sure the author had pristine motives?"

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ a superb thought provoking look at the potential for disaster in all our hospitals.
*by B***S on October 22, 2013*

I had not followed Dr Pou's case when it was occurring, but I was aware that there was a female MD being investigated for practicing euthanasia during Katrina. When this was published, I wanted to learn the story. I have read two other books about medical care during Katrina- the first was CodeBlue, the second a collection of nurse's stories about working during the storm and its aftermath. Both were interesting, but not challenging in the way Five Days at Memorial has been. First, let me say that Ms Fink writes very well. Her excellent prose made the story very clear. I was horrified to learn just how dreadful the conditions became at Memorial hospital. This despite reading the two previous books. Reading this, I could smell the fetid odors, feel the heat and humidity and actually imagine myself in the nurse's shoes. I could clearly understand the terrible dilemma the staff faced as DAYS passed in 100 degree heat with no electricity and the chaos of no plan for rescue of patients, staff and family members stuck in Memorial hospital. I have been an RN for 37 years, and thankfully have never experienced a disaster. What Fink's excellent book has done is shocked me into the awareness that a disaster could occur at my hospital. It would most likely be an earthquake here; all our disaster drills focus on an earthquake. I have never before considered what would we do for our patients after we got them out of a presumably badly damaged building? I work in a free standing psychiatric hospital; fortunately none of our patients are on life support. But all our medical records are computerized. The medicines are dispensed through a electronic computerized dispensing machine. We would not be able to even give anyone a Tylenol, let alone their regular meds. We are on a hill; water is pumped uphill to us, so we wouldn't have much water. I was just informed there's some drinking water stored for the patients but none for the staff. The upshot of my reading this superb book is I am going to ask our upper administration to read Five Days at Memorial. Then I plan to be nosey and find out what are the plans for care for our emotionally fragile patients after the shaking stops. I am feeling very passionate right now about making certain there is a plan for the care of our patients afterwards, and that there is an organized well worked out evacuation program prepared now, before we need it. Where will we go? How? How will we get meds? How will we tell families where their loved one is? What will we do with the few patients who are dangerous? I thank Ms Fink for opening this nurse's eyes to the potential for horrific things happening to my patients. Because of this book, I am getting involved to prepare as best I can for what I hope never happens. I HIGHLY recommend this book to hospital nurses and their administrators everywhere. It is also an invaluable eye opener for those who have loved ones with chronic illness, who could face the same fate as the poor souls in LifeCare or Memorial hospital. This book is a life changer. I will say I was surprised by the legal findings. But I understand how they came to be. I will do my very best to protect my patients from a similar fate, by preparation.

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*Last updated: 2026-07-29*