A Young Doctor’s Unlikely Adventure

BY Mimi Zieman, M.D.

Tap Dancing on Everest, at once riveting and reflective, explores the risks we take to become our truest selves. Mimi Zieman blazes an unexpected path from the daughter of immigrants raised in New York City to a 25-year-old medical student who becomes the doctor and only woman on a team attempting a new route on the remote East Face of Everest in Tibet. In an outrageous plan, the team embarks without the use of supplemental oxygen, Sherpa support, or chance for rescue. When three climbers disappear during their summit attempt, Zieman reaches the knife edge of her limits, digging deeply to fight for the climbers’ lives and to find her voice.

Weaving adventure and medicine in a feminist story of self-discovery, Tap Dancing on Everest captures the curiosity and awe of a young woman as she faces down childhood messages to stay small and safe and ventures into the unknown. The book was acknowledged: Best Memoir of 2024 by the American Writing Awards