An invaluable guide for doctors and patients on how to “recognize and navigate the emotional subtexts” of the doctor-patient...
Ofri (School of Medicine/New York Univ.; Medicine in Translation: Journeys with My Patients, 2011, etc.) uses her experiences as a medical student and practicing physician at Bellevue Hospital to illuminate a side of medicine infrequently addressed: the psychological toll on dedicated doctors.
The author begins with the experiences of third-year medical students, as they leave the classroom for the “the ongoing bedlam” of a hospital ward. In addition to the difficult task of learning all the medical jargon, they absorb the gallows humor that helps medical professionals deal with the constant stress that goes with the territory. They must also learn how to deal with the stench of disease—which is worse in the case of the homeless—without losing sight of a patient's humanity. Ofri ably describes the sheer terror that can occur when an exhausted intern or resident faces a cardiac arrest or other emergency. She describes an incident in her own career in her first week as a medical consultant. After her beeper went off, she rushed to the bedside of the patient (with interns and residents crowding around waiting for her directions), and her mind temporarily blanked. She explains how the fear of making a wrong decision stalks even an experienced doctor, especially when overworked and tired. To function, they must be able to suppress their emotions without losing the empathetic doctor-patient connection that is an essential part of the healing process. However, the constant stress can lead to temporary or permanent doctor burnout. Ofri also deals with what happens when doctors make mistakes. The loss of self-confidence and shame they feel is scarring, even when they receive support from superiors.
An invaluable guide for doctors and patients on how to “recognize and navigate the emotional subtexts” of the doctor-patient relationship.Pub Date: June 4, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-8070-7332-2
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Beacon Press
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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