Electronic Health Reporter

If you work in healthcare, you need to read this book. It is well worth your time and shows quite effectively how one person can create and cause change that can ripple through an industry. All it takes is someone with a passion to serve, and to listen while doing so.

One reason I found this story so compelling is that I’ve spoken with the subject, Sister Anne Brooks of the Tutwiler Clinic, several times. She was a force while there — powerful, sincere and so engaging. What a blessing to the people she served!

The following information on the University Press of Mississippi website is taken from the description of “The Power of One: Sister Anne Brooks and the Tutwiler Clinic,” a book written about the longtime Delta physician.

For 34 years Sister Anne Brooks, a Catholic nun and doctor of osteopathy, served one of the nation’s most impoverished towns and regions, Tutwiler, in Tallahatchie County in the Mississippi Delta.

In 1983, she reopened the Tutwiler Clinic, which had remained closed for five years, as no other physician was willing to serve in Tallahatchie County.

Starting with only two other nuns and regularly working 12-hour days, Brooks’s patient load — in a region where seven out of 10 patients that walked in her door had no way to pay for care — grew from 30 to 40 individuals per month her first year to more than 8,500 annually.

Sally Palmer Thomason tells the powerful story of Sister Anne Brooks, beginning with her tumultuous childhood, the contracting and overcoming of crippling arthritis in early adulthood, and her near-unprecedented decision to attend medical school at the age of 40.

Here’s the link to the book (I make nothing from suggesting you purchase from here): https://www.amazon.com/Power-One-Sister-Tutwiler-Biography/dp/1496829166

Here’s a piece I wrote about Sister Anne when I first started this site: https://electronichealthreporter.com/dr-anne-brooks-nun-house-calling-country-physician-wishes/