'Labor' is a memoir by a doctor who traveled the country with a mobile OB-GYN clinic

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4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 15 April 2026

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

Twenty years into her medical career, Dr. Mary Fariba Afsari, a board-certified OBGYN, had grown increasingly frustrated with the medical profession. She felt that medicine had become more about business and less about caring for patients. Her new memoir, Labor: One Woman’s Work, is about her decision to purchase an RV and convert it into a mobile clinic, which she drove around the country providing medical care. In today’s episode, she talks with NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe about Afsari’s efforts to bring joy back into her profession, how the Dobbs decision impacted her work, and how Labor brings readers into the operating room.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, this is NPR's book of the day.
0:04.6	I'm Tindyarmius.
0:06.2	Dr. Mary Fariba Afsari grew frustrated with the medical profession, saying that it had become
0:11.7	more about business and less about providing care.
0:15.1	So to clear her mind, she took to the road, literally.
0:18.9	She bought an RV, turned it into a mobile clinic, and drove around the
0:22.7	country providing medical care. But, like most good road trips, she learned a whole bunch of other
0:28.2	things along the way. She also wrote a book about it called Labor, One Woman's Work. She talked
0:34.5	about it with weekend edition host Aisha Roscoe.
0:44.9	Dr. Mary Ferryba Afseri is a practicing OBGYN in Portland, Oregon.
0:53.8	In 2022, she felt like the health care system was broken and started to dream about reinventing how she did her job. So she walked into camping world and bought an
0:57.3	RV. My friends and family, all more business savvy than I am, had many questions to which I did not have
1:04.4	answers. A clinic like the one I envisioned did not really exist. Who is going to want to see their
1:10.4	gynecologist inside of an RV?
1:13.4	My mother didn't understand who would drive the 31-foot clinic. I'm going to drive it, I answered
1:19.4	her question over the phone. You know how to drive an RV? She was incredulous.
1:25.6	AFSERI's new book recounts this professional journey and also her search for answers about
1:32.1	her family's past in Iran.
1:34.2	It's called Labor, One Woman's Work.
1:37.2	She joins us now from Portland.
1:39.0	Welcome.
1:39.8	Hi, Ayesha.
	...

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