Patients and Doctors: Life-Changing Stories from Primary Care / Edition 1

by Jeffrey M. Borkan, Jack H. Medalie, Dov Steinmetz, Shmuel Reis

Overview

How patients heal doctors

In Patients and Doctors, physicians from around the world share stories of the patients they’ll never forget, patients who have changed the way they practice medicine. Their thoughtful reflections on a variety of themes—from suffering to humor to death—help us to understand the experience of doctoring, in all its ordinary and extraordinary aspects.
    In settings as diverse as Slovenia and Sweden, Cambodia and New Jersey, we learn what makes the healer feel graced with insight or scarred with misadventure. In Washington State, we anguish with patient and doctor alike when a young resident removes a screw from a little boy’s foot; on the Israeli-Jordanian border, a woman goes into labor just as the air-raid sirens signal the beginning of the Gulf War. These compelling accounts remind us what is at stake in doctoring, reinforcing the value of stories in the teaching and practice of medicine: to calm, to validate, and to illuminate the human experience.

“These stories illustrate humane physicians at their best.”—Sharon Kaufman, author of The Healer’s Tale

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780299163402
Publisher:	University of Wisconsin Press
Publication date:	07/01/1999
Edition description:	1
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Jeffrey M. Borkan is director of research in the Department of Family Medicine at Ben Gurion University of the Negev in Israel. He also runs a family practice in a remote part of southern Israel. Jack H. Medalie is professor emeritus at Case Western Reserve University in the Department of Family Medicine, which he founded. Shmuel Reis, a family physician, is chair of the Department of Family Medicine in the Technion Faculty of Medicine, Haifa, Israel. Dov Steinmetz is lecturer at the Faculty of Health Sciences, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, where he teaches family medicine to residents.

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Thomas G. DeWitt, MD (University of Cincinnati School of Medicine)
Description: In this book, scholarly reflections are combined with succinct stories of patient care experiences written by primary care physicians from around the world.
Purpose: In the editors' own words, this book represents an "effort to further the narrative trend in medicine and ...share the intimate mysteries of our [physicians'] work."
Audience: Although the editors do not explicitly state that the book is for physicians in training, the structure and comments implicitly identify them as a target population. At the same time, many other readers, whether lay or medical, would appreciate the insights into the humanness of physicians.
Features: The structure of the book consists of ten chapters, each with an introductory, well referenced discussion followed by several very short stories of patient encounters by an array of physician authors. These chapters cover a spectrum of topics from suffering and shame to family and community to humor and, inevitably, to death. The writing is variable, from the somewhat tedious introductory reflections to the simple but clear writing of the stories. The reflections at times seem overly academic or redundant, especially since the patient encounters speak profoundly for themselves. The powerful stories of "Grace," telling of a patient's gift of grace, and "The Next Generation," telling of the fatal neglect of a profoundly dysfunctional family, are but two examples.
Assessment: Unique in content and format, through this book the editors offer the reader many gems, many brief insights into the personal world of physicians, their patients, and the care of those patients. There are successes and failures, good writing and poor, but in the aggregate this book is well worth reading whether one is beginning or ending a career in medicine, or anywhere in between.

Doody's Review Service

Insightful. Entertaining. But more importantly refreshing to the soul. Our patients always teach us things, yet how rarely can we explain this to others. This book of medical tales does just that.”—Dr. Zorba Paster, host of Zorba Paster on Your Health

From the Publisher

3 Stars from Doody

In this book, scholarly reflections are combined with succinct stories of patient care experiences written by primary care physicians from around the world. In the editors' own words, this book represents an ""effort to further the narrative trend in medicine and ...share the intimate mysteries of our [physicians'] work."" Although the editors do not explicitly state that the book is for physicians in training, the structure and comments implicitly identify them as a target population. At the same time, many other readers, whether lay or medical, would appreciate the insights into the humanness of physicians. The structure of the book consists of ten chapters, each with an introductory, well referenced discussion followed by several very short stories of patient encounters by an array of physician authors. These chapters cover a spectrum of topics from suffering and shame to family and community to humor and, inevitably, to death. The writing is variable, from the somewhat tedious introductory reflections to the simple but clear writing of the stories. The reflections at times seem overly academic or redundant, especially since the patient encounters speak profoundly for themselves. The powerful stories of ""Grace,"" telling of a patient's gift of grace, and ""The Next Generation,"" telling of the fatal neglect of a profoundly dysfunctional family, are but two examples. Unique in content and format, through this book the editors offer the reader many gems, many brief insights into the personal world of physicians, their patients, and the care of those patients. There are successes and failures, good writing and poor, but in the aggregate this book is well worth reading whetherone is beginning or ending a career in medicine, or anywhere in between.

Thomas G. DeWitt

Physicians from around the world provide philosophical, pithy, and poetic stories of the remarkable and challenging patients or situations that changed the way they practice medicine. Stories are divided into ten sections addressing suffering and shame, learning from patients, death, secrets, illness in the doctor's family, and other themes. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews