When Doctors Become Patients
by Robert Klitzman
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Book Summary Information
Author: Robert KlitzmanEdition: Hardcover
Published: 2007-11-30
ISBN: 0195327675
Number of pages: 344
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Book Reviews of When Doctors Become Patients
Book Review: Not for the medico-phobes
Summary: 4 Stars
This book is dangerous for a medico-phobe like me. I avoid doctors. The only medication in our house is for the dog.
I was expecting a book in the style of Atul Gawande or Jerome Groopman -- a novelistic style that's an easy read. Instead Klitzman writes in a scholarly style, so the book reads like a sociology research paper. That's not necessarily bad, but unfortunately might deter some readers. And that would be a shame, because we all need to read this book.
Frankly, it's scary. Doctors are shocked to realize how error-prone the system can be. They probably identify errors that the rest of us won't even notice. They get caught up in the indignities and hassles of medical treatment. And for the most part, they're surprised.
What surprised me was the passivity of some of the doctors. One woman wrote about a female medical resident who was in way over her head. She refused to call for help, saying, "I'm the doctor." The nurses finally intervened, brushing the resident aside and carrying out the appropriate procedures.
Why didn't this doctor-patient report the resident to the hospital board? That resident is a danger to every patient she encounters.
Other doctors admit they fall into the role of trying to please their doctors, thereby giving up on honest communication.
A major missing component to this book is a section on implications for ordinary non-doctor patients. Klitzman does include a few pages with the subtitle 'Lessons for Patients" but it's not really helpful.
I become extremely frustrated with the advice to remember that doctors are "only human." If they want us to see them as fallible mortals, they can't get away with acting arrogant, keeping people waiting and dismissing pain ("It's all in your mind" or "It doesn't really hurt").
Hopefully doctors are becoming more humane as well as human, as the lessons of this book will be taught in medical schools. Hopefully the next generation won't turn so many of us into medico-phobes.
Summary of When Doctors Become Patients
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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