If you need an emergency appendectomy on Nantucket, the man who will perform it knows how to do so with an arrowhead. Island life is like that: a little unusual, improvised, independent and outside the mainstream. At a time when America's family doctors are under siege, and so many things in health care are combustible and complicated, Timothy Lepore is an extraordinary character. He is the glue that holds health care together on Nantucket, a place where rich and poor, natives and washashores, celebrities and illegal immigrants, tourists and seventh-generation descendants of seafaring adventurers come together. Island Practice takes readers deeply into this world, showing what it is like to practice medicine in a place where life can sometimes seem to be forgotten by time and sometimes seem to be overtaken by it, a place that sits apart from the rest of the country and is yet inextricably tied to its struggles and transformations.