Overview

In a fast-paced, complicated, and evermore dangerous world it is easy to become self-absorbed and consumed with our own problems. There is one place, however, where we put our self-centered concerns aside, and our deep, common humanity is profoundly touched. That place is where sick children dwell. It is no less difficult - and perhaps even more difficult in many ways - for physicians who have chosen to attend to the health and well-being of gravely ill or dying children. Margaret Mohrmann has devoted most of her professional life to them, and in ""Attending Children"" she shares the remarkable education those children and their families have given her. Her narratives are both painful and hopeful, tragic and funny, full of remarkable characters and sometimes bizarre families. Mohrmann has sifted through her thirty years as a pediatrician, and with poignancy, humor, and uncompromising honesty, she shares her sometimes stumbling but always deeply caring journey through a land where, sometimes, small hands have to be let go too soon. She introduces us to not only the physical challenges she, her colleagues, and her patients encounter, but the spiritual ones as well. ""Attending Children"" is a unique experience as Mohrmann takes the reader on a doctor's rounds over many years to meet the faces and the struggles, the heartaches and the joys of being a pediatrician. In the case of Margaret Mohrmann and her patients, no one could ask for better teachers.

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9781589011076

Table of Contents

Reviews

Deserves a special place in the library of each and every medical professional who cares for children of all ages. --Journal of the American Medical Association A refreshingly frank first-hand account of [Mohrmann's] journey from nervous medical intern to director of a pediatric intensivecare unit. --The Lancet Margaret Mohrmann gives an eloquent account of her development as a physician and as a human being. Her self-examination is uncompromising, sometimes lacerating, and ultimately redemptive. Mohrmann dissects the differences between her training as a physician and her education as a healer. This book should be read by and meditated upon by anybody who is thinking about or training for a career in medicine. --John Lantos, M.D., professor of pediatrics and associate director, MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics, The University of Chicago Margaret Mohrmann allows us to see what we hardly dare to imagine: medical practice full of generosity, emptied of ego. No medical writing shows more clearly the profound effects of physicians on their patients' spirit. In the humility and care of these stories, we walk on holy ground. --Arthur W. Frank, professor, department of sociology, University of Calgary, and author of The Wounded Storyteller and The Renewal of Generosity This book will inspire medical students, reaffirm the varieties of humane practicies for her colleagues, and reassure parents that humane care is still possible. --Edmund D. Pellegrino, M.D., chair, President's Council on Bioethics

Author Information

Margaret E. Mohrmann, MD, is associate professor of religious studies and medical education at the University of Virginia and is the author of Medicine as Ministry: Reflections on Suffering, Ethics, and Hope.

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