Medicine is a very important theme to the novel overall for many reasons. On the surface, medicine is important because most of the main characters in the novel are doctors, and the protagonists grow up in a hospital. Medicine also provides a second level of competition and jealousy in the relationship between Marion and Shiva. When Shiva begins to earn accolades for his work in fistula research, Marion is envious and angry with Shiva for invading American newspapers. Medicine is also an integral element in the reunification of the Stone family: without Thomas Stone's groundbreaking work with liver transplants, Marion would have died from hepatitis and would not have been given a chance to repair his fractured relationship with Shiva.
But medicine is an important theme in the novel on another, symbolic level. Despite the fact that the family is made up of doctors, fractures, betrayals, and injuries harm the familial relationships and no amount of medical attention can cure them. The reason why Tsige admires and loves Marion is not because of the medical interventions he provided for her dying son, but for the comfort and care he gave to her after the baby's death. The reason why Shiva's fistula research is first successful is not because of its medical advances - although that does come later - but because he is one of the first doctors to provide sympathetic bedside manner to these untouchable women. Finally, in the most important moment of medicine versus love, when Marion falls ill, it is not his father's groundbreaking surgery that saves him, it is the quiet moment of forgiveness with his brother, a moment without medication, that heals his heart.
