by David Kerns

A tale of ethical crisis and redemption, Standard of Care is one doctor's tumultuous journey as a senior executive in America's largest and most predatory hospital corporation. Weary of the tedium and diminishing returns of twenty-five years of private practice, Dr. Daniel Fazen becomes the new senior medical executive, the guardian of quality patient care, at Walnut Creek Memorial, his long-cherished community hospital. Without warning, eleven months later, Memorial is acquired by the Olympia Healthcare Corporation, the largest and, he knows, the most ruthless for profit hospital conglomerate in America. At age fifty-five, with a taste for the good life and years of tuition ahead for his kids, Dan ponders a six figure incentive. With reservations and rationalizations he stays with Olympia. And so begins a downhill debacle.