Your Medical Mind

Starred review from July 25, 2011
Groopman proved himself an exceptional guide to the inner workings of the doctor's mind in his bestselling How Doctors Think. Now he and Hartzband, his wife and colleague at Harvard Medical School, get inside the patient's mind. The result is a chronicle of how ordinary people, landing at a medical crossroads, must decide about care, who should provide it, and for how long. They present tales of patients who must face conflicting information or uncertain outcomes and choose a course of action: a consultant finds his usual "objectiveâ reasoning doesn't apply to the decision to undergo a bone-marrow transplant with possibly debilitating side effects; and a dying woman's change of mind about end-of-life care illustrates how unpredictable our response to death can be. The authors also illustrate the toll illness takes on a patients' loved ones as they strive to make decisions for incapacitated relatives. There are no easy answers here, no prescriptions for the "rightâ decision, but rather an illuminating look at how different people think about their options and the emotions and experiences that help shape their decisions. This remarkable survey can help make the uncertainty of illness and treatment seem just a bit more manageable and less lonely.

April 15, 2011

Too much information, whether from doctors, friends, drug companies, online searches, or media reports: that's the problem we face when making crucial medical decisions. The authors, who are on the staff of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Cambridge, MA, and the faculty of Harvard Medical School, here aim to give patients the tools to sort through the mess. An urgent topic; that Groopman's How Doctors Think was a New York Times best seller bodes well for this title.

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2011
In this open-minded book, oncologist and New Yorker writer Groopman and endocrinologist Hartzband give patients license to not just blindly follow doctors' orders. The Harvard Medical School physicianswho happen to be married to each otherexplain that past experiences understandably influence consumers' decisions to take a medication or agree to a medical procedure. They cite anonymous examples but are at their best when they write about their own families. After Groopman saw his 55-year-old father die after receiving dismal care following a heart attack, he became such a big believer in modern medicine that he impatiently rushed into getting a disastrous spinal fusion for his own back pain. Such tales lead these two empathetic physicians to help patients understand what makes sense for them, given their family and medical histories and social history (their knowledge of others with similar conditions). Whether people are what these doctors call minimalists or maximalists, believers or doubters, naturalists or technology fans, they can feel good about listening to their own hearts rather than thinking a single doctor always knows what's best.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)