The midnight meal and other essays about doctors, patients, and medicine - Lowenstein, Jerome (Yale University Press, 1997)
Includes bibliographical references (pages 121-126) and index
With wisdom and compassion, Dr. Jerome Lowenstein tells stories about relationships between medical students and their teachers, physicians and their colleagues, and physicians and their patients. He reflects on what doctors learn from treating chronic illness; how they respond to patients' needs for reassurance; how they bear the burden of treating patients with life-threatening or degenerative disease; whether the distinction between traditional and "alternative" medical treatment is ultimately beneficial or destructive; and many other issues. Dr. Lowenstein's ruminations on humanistic approaches to learning and practicing medicine will be treasured by physicians, medical students, and patients alike
The midnight meal -- The biomolecular revolution -- Can you teach compassion? -- Coughs, clouds, and ice -- Treating chronic illness -- Patients as teachers -- Reassurance and the warning on the label -- Defending the common cold -- Asymmetry -- On drawing blood -- The vital signs -- The dummy and the standardized patient -- Holding the blood gas report -- The narrative instinct -- The whole truth ...? -- Aids -- A marriage without divorce -- Shaky evidence -- A critical incident -- The homeless man on morning rounds -- Numbers, numbers -- Alternative medicine -- Bellevue Hospital