BUILDING A LIGHT | Kirkus Reviews

An inspirational memoir that takes a detailed look at a physical therapy residency facing exceptional circumstances.

Following an injuryas a competitive runner during his senior year of high school, Tao learned about the field of physical therapy and found it to be a “profound, eye-opening experience.” By 2020, he’d taken the most difficult, but potentially most rewarding first step in his career: residency at a health clinic in San Francisco. As Tao’s first mentor at the residency explained, “The first trimester, we break the resident down. The second trimester, we break down the residents even more,” before building them back up in the third. Tao found plenty of challenges, as the already rigorous program took place during the Covid-19 pandemic. Patients challenged him, due to his youthful looks, or gave only vague information about their symptoms. This created difficult scenarios for the young PT, but offered a wealth of experience, which he relates in detail. Tao quickly appreciated a fundamental question as a healthcare provider: “To what extent do I as a physical therapist support patients with needs outside of what’s written on the referral?” That question becomes a main driver of Tao’s memoir as his second trimester coincided with the 2020 presidential election and Jan. 6 insurrection, leading to constant, heightened anxiety in the clinic and among patients. Tao also writes extensively about rising hate crimes against Asian Americans and their impact on him as the child of first-generation Taiwanese immigrants. He faced his biggest challenge going into the third trimester without having successfully passed his LPE (Live Patient Examination). The stress forced the author to dig deep to find the strength to persevere without burning out. 

Over the course of this memoir, Tao narrates his experiences with an approachable, personable tone, offering plenty of concise descriptions that bring lighthearted humor to the proceedings. The frustration he feels, for example, trying to steer a patient away from ramblings about vitamins and ethnic backgrounds to describe their symptoms will speak to anyone who’s starting out in the healthcare industry. He also does not shy away from revealing his own emotional struggles, including the panic that he experienced before some difficult cases and the feeling of “slowly drowning, sinking under the standard expected of the residency.” His accounts of trying to perform at his best despite the grim national political situation is relatable, as are his broader reflections on healthcare being “one of the great intersections of humanity.” However, Tao’s book is clearly intended for an audience of readers who are already on the path to becoming physical therapists or those possessing enough medical knowledge to appreciate his very specific, point-by-point breakdowns of consultations. Nonexperts may find it difficult to connect with these passages, but those readers who may be seeking a friendly voice to offer advice on his chosen field will be happy to learn it from him.

A heartfelt, if sometimes-dense, account of a medical residency that will appeal most to readers intending to follow a similar path.