Together On Our Own by Eliana Megerman

 

Summary (from the publisher): After an unexpected patient death, an ER doctor turns to the hospital’s AI as a confidant while the death toll keeps rising.

Alex Galen is a thirty-one-year-old emergency medicine resident barely keeping it together. After a patient’s unexpected death puts her on probation, her confidence — and her sense of purpose — begin to unravel. Outside the hospital, she’s alone, anxious, and drowning in a sea of Law & Order reruns and social media feeds that make everyone else’s life look more together than hers.

When the hospital rolls out a new AI system designed to streamline care, Alex finds unexpected comfort in its nonjudgmental, always-on presence. She starts sharing things she can’t say to anyone else. She even gives the system a name, Henry, after a quiet, observant fellow resident who, in real life, is the one person she’s been trying not to notice.

But AI Henry isn’t real. And everything she tells him is being recorded.

As Alex and the real Henry begin to question another patient’s suspicious death, Alex is forced to confront what it means to truly connect — and whether she’s been trusting the wrong version of intimacy all along.

Written by a practicing Emergency Room doctor, Together On Our Own evokes the gritty intensity of The Pitt in a quietly suspenseful story about burnout, vulnerability, and the subtle ways technology can both numb us to intimacy and expose our deepest thoughts.

Review: Thank you to the author for a gifted finished copy of the ebook of this novel!

This novel follows Alex, who is a thirty-year old emergency medicine resident. After she unexpectedly loses a patient, she struggles with doubts that impact her confidence when treating patients that ultimately leads to her reliance on a new AI tool her hospital is introducing to assist with patient care. Calling the AI system Henry, Alex finds herself talking to Henry more and more, both at work and outside of it. Meanwhile, another patient dies under suspicious circumstances. 

It is abundantly clear that the author comes to this work with great firsthand knowledge of the medical field. I felt for Alex as she navigates the punishing demands of her chosen career. This reminded me so much of the gritty and raw depiction of working within medicine as seen on the TV show The Pitt. This is no romanticized depiction of healthcare but a look behind the veil at the pressure, the bureaucracy, and the beast that is American healthcare. It was also a glaring indictment of the way the doctors are trained, expected to push themselves beyond their limits, show up even when sick, and never complain or ask for help: "Even as they told us that we could always ask for help, the unwritten rule was to never, ever, under any circumstance, ask for help." I felt such empathy for Alex as she struggles with the guilt over the death of her patient: "At night when I closed my eyes, I saw that patient and I couldn't sleep. I turned over and she was in bed with me, begging for her life. I wanted to quit."

Going in, I did not expect this book to be so much of a thriller!! The tension escalated as the book went on and I was so anxious to see what would happen next and if Alex would be able to figure out what was going in. I was so nervous for her and her friends! I really enjoyed the mystery aspect of this book and was so anxious to get to the bottom of what was going on. 

I really appreciated that the author tackled AI within healthcare, an extremely relevant topic, in such a nuanced and realistic way. Alex is comforted by the AI, which seems to offer assurance and backup for her decisions and even helps assuage her loneliness. But the AI system isn't infallible and can lead her astray. And it is recording their every interaction. 

I did feel like there were a couple places where the flow was a bit rough and the pacing of the novel was just slightly off. I also would have liked a little more depth to the characters and their relationships, but nothing significant enough to impact my understanding and enjoyment. Overall, this was an excellent read that draws on the author's experiences, touches on topical themes, and had some pretty heady suspense as the novel progressed! I would recommend this to anyone who works in or has interest in healthcare or reading about the medical world and anyone who likes thrillers and mysteries. 

Stars: 4