The following version of the book was used to create this study guide: Harper, Michelle. The Beauty in Breaking: A Memoir. New York: Riverhead Books, 2020. Amazon Kindle eBook Edition.

Michele Harper is an emergency medicine doctor. She has learned to cultivate stillness amid struggle, in part from her experience growing up with an abusive father, and knows that it is her job to find that stillness in the chaos of emergency medicine as she does everything she can to heal her patients and keep death at bay. Like her patients, she has been broken but believes that there is something beautiful and worthy in the process of healing and rebirth.

While growing up with a physically abusive father, Michele decides to become a doctor and specifically want to work in emergency rooms. She wants to be of service to others through healing. At the end of her medical residency, Michele had planned to move to Philadelphia with her husband. Instead, he ended their marriage, and Michele is left to rebuild her life alone in a new city. During a night shift, Michele and her team are unable to resuscitate an infant who had suddenly and inexplicably stopped breathing at home. Michele is shaken by this loss and the possibility that she may never have a child of her own. The loss of this infant breaks open something inside of her and she recognizes openings as opportunities for healing. In the next chapter, Michele treats a patient who had previously assaulted a female doctor. This experience prompts Michele to reflect on the vulnerabilities of medical workers as well as when and how a patient like this should be held responsible for his actions.

In Chapter 5, Michele advocates for a patient who has been placed under arrest and who does not want to consent to a medical examination. She explores the role that systemic racism played in this interaction between Michele, the patient, the police, and the other hospital staff. Michele follows the law and the ethical codes of the hospital but both the police and her co-workers question her authority and her choices. Michele then learns that she has been passed over for a promotion because of the systemic racism in her workplace and resigns. At her new workplace in a poor and marginalized community, Michele treats a young man who is injured and ultimately dies as a result of gang violence. She reflects on another young patient from her past who did not feel safe in public spaces and reflects on how this lack of safety leads individuals to make life-altering choices.

In Chapter 7, Michele beings working at the Veterans Affairs Hospital where she meets Vicki, a veteran who has survived psychological and sexual abuse in the military. Michele's experience with Vicki opens up a discussion about the importance of forgiveness in healing. Michele then treats who patients with opposite attitudes toward their medical crises. One patient is hysterical and then refuses treatment, while another patient with a cancer diagnosis chooses to focus on the good in his life, inspiring Michele to want to live well and on her own terms.

After a decade with no communication from her father, Michele receives a letter from him and they begin to reconnect. Michele works on forgiving her father as a part of her healing process. In the same chapter, she treats a severely mentally ill patient who is under arrest for murder. She reflects on how narratives around mental illness are told in our society and laments the mental health and criminal justice systems that are insufficient in treating such cases. In the next chapter, Michele writes about a holistic approach to health that includes complimentary practices such as meditation. She writes about her own experiences with meditation as well as her experience in treating a patient with high blood pressure. This patient's condition was caused by stress, and meditation was successful in beginning to treat it. Michele is inspired by patients who commit to a path of healing and wellness, and is herself commitment to serving and healing.

In Chapter 11, Michele treats a toddler who has been physically abused by her father. She then treats a patient who passes away before miraculously briefly beginning to breathe again, giving her family time to come to the hospital to say goodbye before she finally does pass away. Both patients have gone or will go through a process of resurrection or rebirth, as Michele herself has done as she healed from the brokenness of her divorce and began to forge her career path on her own. In the Epilogue, Michelle writes that being broken gives one an opportunity to explore something new that could not have been imagined previously.