Worthy reading for medical students and practitioners but also applicable to other fields: artists, writers, musicians,...
Can the encounter between doctor and patient be improved? A renowned family physician thinks so, and he explains how in this compendium of a lifetime of experience.
In chapters with titles like Being Mindful, Beginner’s Mind, Curiosity, Being Present, and Responding to Suffering, Epstein (Family Medicine, Psychiatry and Oncology/Univ. of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry) reminds us that “attending” is shorthand for the chief physician in charge of a specific case, but he also emphasizes how it describes a way of being present in the moment, sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of the patient. If that patient is suffering, the doctor must show compassion but also keep in mind the importance of avoiding burnout. Epstein contrasts this kind of attending with the hurried 15-minute encounter so common today, in which the doctor pronounces a diagnosis and a prescription while turning away to another case or the computer. Taking the time to truly engage can make all the difference in arriving at the correct diagnosis, gaining trust and compliance from the patient, and, over time, becoming a master in the field. In difficult terminal cases, for example, when the doctor hears the dreaded question, “what would you do if you were me?” it means pausing, not saying anything right away, and then asking more questions to arrive at what Epstein calls a “shared mind.” Much of the meaning of “attending,” as the author uses it, relates to the practice of meditation, and he offers some guidance on how to concentrate attention so the mind is not distracted or wandering. But Epstein is no spiritual preacher, and this is no New Age text. The author richly illustrates his arguments with case histories and stories of near mishaps in surgeries.
Worthy reading for medical students and practitioners but also applicable to other fields: artists, writers, musicians, teachers et al. can also fall into formulaic ruts and autopilot behavior and need literally to change their minds.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5011-2171-5
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: Dec. 4, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
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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