
09/09/2013
In Search of Mrs. Pearson
In Search of Mrs. Pearson is the story of a young physician-scientist, Jeff Pearson, who has spent most of his young life in rigorous education and training. In San Francisco in the late 1980s and early 1990s, he was exposed to the horrible realities of the AIDS plague, and his work became increasingly focused upon HIV-related neurological complications. It was also during this time that he met and married Kim. However, all of his work was leading him back to Houston, where he would be able to conduct a large clinical trial with a novel drug that could offer some hope for the deteriorating mental, motor, and other neuropsychological consequences so common in HIV infection and AIDS. Along with basic research and patient care duties facilitating the trial, it was the perfect combination of circumstances that he had groomed himself for his entire life and that will further his career while allowing him to serve patients he deeply cares about. Unfortunately, conflicting career opportunities and unstated marital and personal factors have led Kim to go initially to Seattle instead. Told in first person, the story alternates between recollections of Jeff’s past and the present in 1993-1994 Houston, where much of the story unfolds in the setting of unexpected, routine encounters between himself and a series of unlikely (very non-medical) friends who periodically meet up in a neighborhood park. The casual conversations explore a range of topics, from blatant discussions of s*x to frivolous observations that convey basic aspects of humanity. While battling within his personal life, Jeff is also ultimately placed at a crossroads of his concern for the individual patient and the rigor of adherence to the formal scientific way for true medical progress. As seen through a character dealing with the ego imbued into physicians and other intelligent people in our society, this is a story of potentially unavoidable sacrifice, the struggle between the commitment essential to his career, which is his passion, and that required to possibly finally experience a truly deep personal love.
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