Second Opinions: 8 Clinical Dramas Intuition Decision Making Front Lines medn

Wonderful book. Easy to read but raises a number of important issues.

This is an outstanding book. From Hipocrates to Avicena, from Maimonides to William Osler and so on to our days, leading physicians have wrote the same message about the core of medical practice and profession, using different words. This book is an actualized version of the same message. Physicians have the responsability to know and keep updated with the huge amount of scientific facts they should manage to treat patients properly. They should become real experts so on providing patients with the best possible quality of medical care. Nevertheless, a physician should never forget this is only a part of what medical practice should be. They treat individual persons, each of them with their own feelings, fears and expectations, with realities, relatives and responsabilities, with opinions, intuitons and hopes. A physician should give patients time, effort and dedication and should be there, even when the time has come to sweat, cry and die. Dr. Groopman give us a remembrance of this concept using eight vivid examples of his medical and personal life. In Second Opinions, Dr. Groopman give us also a voice of alert on how insurance companies and HMO's are dramatically changing the practice of medicine, and their influence on the deshumanization of the doctor-patient relationship. He writes about the need of doctors to remain being healers, taking care both for bodies and souls and he writes about how healers will thanks G-d for allowing them to do what they do every day. This is what this book is all about. Dr. Groopman has outstandingly succeded to show us what the practice of the art and science of medicine should be.

Excellent état, conforme à mes attentes, un auteur que j’adore ( je suis médecin), même si les textes de Groopman datent d’il y a 25 ans, ils restent complètement d’actualité en ce qui concerne la relation médecin- patient, trop souvent maltraitée.

This MD has written about the medical system v medical care. As a nurse I found it informative and inspiring. As a patient, I was frustrated with what happens in the name of patient care and "standards" of care. This is well worth the read. In our health care as commodity society, some providers quit caring, do not look beyond the presenting symptoms, accept cultural stereotypes, and thus the patient is left to find the right provider. These stories provide some warning and some strength of purpose when facing a provider who doesn't get it. It takes a lot to turn your back on your doctors "opinion" and seek care elsewhere.

This book is a thought-provoking journey into the core of what constitutes the practice of medicine and the meaning of the practice of medicine to a physician. The chapters deal with Dr. Groopman's personal experiences as a doctor. He documents the struggles, empathy and learning that develop between him and his patients. He describes how his viewing his patients as more than just a diagnosis helps to increase the rapport between patient and doctor. Though not as ground-breaking as his previous book, 'The Measure of Our Days', Groopman continues to write with insight, self-reflection and with a vision widened by the people he treats. He documents how the privilege of healing, along with the patients he comes to know, contribute to his own growth as a physician and as a man.