About RD Boss

  "Engrossing and moving, "Due" is skillful fiction yet deeply real. While the central character is far too tiny to speak a word, the others who enter Julian's gravitational field do their best to speak on his behalf, each bringing their own expertise and circumstances, with their own preconceptions sometimes expressed openly and sometimes roaring silently underneath. This is a tender and raw story about the nuances of doing for versus doing to, and it is ultimately a story of how complicated decisions about what is best are informed not only by medical facts but also by love."

--Amy Kuebelbeck, author,

 Waiting with Gabriel: A Story of Cherishing a Baby’s Brief Life

 and lead author of A Gift of Time: Continuing Your Pregnancy When Your Baby’s Life Is Expected to Be Brief

  “… Due helps us as readers to ponder - what is it that is expected or owed when a fragile infant enters our world too early, too suddenly, and with too little warning?... As readers, we join the novel’s characters in going headlong into this infant’s intense entry into life. Part of the intensity is from reconnecting with memories, beliefs, and life values held by the infant’s parents, grandparents, NICU specialists, and all affected others who cannot escape rethinking who they are as individuals, their ideas of what makes a good doctor, a good nurse, a good parent, and even a good baby…  The multiplicity of the relationships and their intricacies which escape our awareness under most circumstances are inescapable in this novel – we see and even feel the experience of each affected person." 

--Pamela S. Hinds, PhD, RN 

Professor of Pediatrics, Children's National Hospital &

George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences

  “Due reads like an unbiased, unflinching documentary about the uniquely complex and often distressing universe that is the NICU: its players, its pressures, its pains, its pace. As it explores facets of intensive care… it shows how very human the individuals in it are - highly trained and well-intended and still capable of mistakes, exhausted, searching for the positive, hanging on to hope, staring down bad news, wrestling with uncertainty, coping with grim realities, (barely) juggling work and family. There is personal sacrifice, competing priorities, bargaining, blunt survival, absolute commitment. Due is honest and important.”

--Blyth Lord, Courageous Parents Network

   "Tracing the arc of illness of a tiny baby born extremely prematurely, Dr. Boss’ novel weaves a keenly imagined tapestry of the baby’s parents, family members, doctors, nurses, chaplains, and so many others touched by this tiny life, with details deeply informed from years of experience and a story line compellingly told by a gifted writer. While most outcomes for infants cared for in neonatal intensive care units are nothing short of wonderous, for anyone who wants to see – and start to understand – what happens when very sick infants do not get better, this novel grants the reader entry into this realm of hope and hardship, of love and sorrow."

--Chris Feudtner

author, Light and Shadow: A Novel of Pediatric Internship 

  “From the first chapter, you feel like you are in the hospital dealing with heart wrenching decisions and impossible situations. R.D. Boss does not sugar coat the reality – either for patients or clinicians-- and yet leavens it with humanity and empathy for all participants. This book will help anyone – a clinician, parent or family member – better understand the medical and ethical dilemmas faced in the neonatal intensive care. Highly recommended!”

--Robert M. Arnold, MD

co-author, Navigating Communication with Seriously Ill Patients 

  “A powerful book with beautiful and believable insight…. Baby Julian, his parents, and the team that cares for them - doctors, nurses, social workers, chaplaincy, environmental services, are all captivating characters that readers can emotionally connect to through their stories of struggles, fears and hopes - inside and outside of the hospital. Due transports us into the unique and challenging world of the people who care for the tiniest of humans.” 

--Ann F. Schrooten, author, Shared Struggles: Stories from Parents and Pediatricians Caring for Children with Serious Illnesses