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Oxford University Press, USA
December 2007
On Sale: November 30, 2007
344 pages ISBN: 0195327675 EAN: 9780195327670 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
For many doctors, their role as powerful healer precludes
thoughts of ever getting sick themselves. When they do, it
initiates a profound shift of awareness-- not only in their
sense of their selves, which is invariably bound up with the
"invincible doctor" role, but in the way that they view
their patients and the doctor-patient relationship. While
some books have been written from first-person perspectives
on doctors who get sick-- by Oliver Sacks among them-- and
TV shows like "House" touch on the topic, never has there
been a "systematic, integrated look" at what the experience
is like for doctors who get sick, and what it can teach us
about our current health care system and more broadly, the
experience of becoming ill. The psychiatrist Robert Klitzman here weaves together
gripping first-person accounts of the experience of doctors
who fall ill and see the other side of the coin, as a
patient. The accounts reveal how dramatic this
transformation can be-- a spiritual journey for some, a
radical change of identity for others, and for some a new
way of looking at the risks and benefits of treatment
options. For most however it forever changes the way they
treat their own patients. These questions are important not
just on a human interest level, but for what they teach us
about medicine in America today. While medical technology
advances, the health care system itself has become more
complex and frustrating, and physician-patient trust is at
an all-time low. The experiences offered here are unique
resource that point the way to a more humane future.
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