Overview
"Without any warning, in September 1999, David Newman was told he had a rare and life-threatening tumor in the base of his skull. In the compressed space of five weeks, he consulted with leading physicians and surgeons at four major medical centers. The doctors offered drastically differing opinions; several pronounced the tumor inoperable and voiced skepticism about the effectiveness of any nonsurgical treatment. Talking with Doctors is the story of Newman's efforts, at a time of great stress and even impending death, to wend his way through the dense thicket of medical consultations in search of a physician and a treatment that offered the possibility of survival. It is the story, especially, of the harrowing process of assessing conflicting ""expert"" opinions and, in so doing, of making sense of the priorities, personalities, and vulnerabilities of different doctors. All too often, he found, the leading specialists to whom he was sent were strangers in the consulting room-and strangers who became stranger still, both cognitively and emotionally, when ambiguous findings pushed them to the outer limits of their training and experience. Newman writes poignantly of his sense of powerlessness and desperation, of the painstaking means by which he ascertained what could be known about his tumor, and of the fortuitous events that finally led him to life-saving help. Talking with Doctors is a compelling, absorbing, unsettling story that touches a collective raw nerve about the experience of doctors and medical care when life-threatening illness leads us to subspecialists at major medical centers. Probing the nature of medical authority and the grounds of a trusting doctor-patient relationship, Newman illuminates with grace and power what it now means for a patient to participate in life-and-death medical decisions."
Full Product Details
Author: David Newman (David Newman, Private Practice, New York, USA)
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint: Analytic Press,U.S.
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 2.00cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.474kg
ISBN: 9780881634464
ISBN 10: 0881634468
Pages: 208
Publication Date: 07 December 2005
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Out of Print
Availability: Out of stock
Reviews
<p>?David Newman's Talking with Doctors should be required reading of all medical students, practicing physicians, and health care professionals. It should also be carefully read by anyone intending to utilize medical services at any point in his or her lifetime?which is to say, all of us. When we talk with our doctors we are often in our most emotionally vulnerable state: uninformed, frightened, confused, even overwhelmed. We are intensely dependent on strangers whose medical purview and time constraints rarely allow them to meet our need for contact, understanding, and meaningful dialogue. David Newman brings the sensitivity of a psychotherapist, with expertise in the nuances of emotion, personality functioning, and interpersonal dynamics, to this riveting examination of his horrifying and inspiring illness experience.? <p>- Lewis Aron, Ph.D., Director, NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis<p>?Despite or perhaps because of advances in technology, the ability of
Author Information
David Newman is a faculty member and supervisor at The Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis and a visiting faculty member at The Westchester Center for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. He is in private practice in New York, where he lives with his wife and children.
