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Second Opinions
Second Opinions
Author: Jerome Groopman
The acclaimed doctor and author of the best-selling The Measure of Our Days---who writes "beautifully, tenderly, truthfully" (Oliver Sacks)--explores the art and science of decision-making in today's complex medical universe. — Jerome Groopman, an eminent clinician and researcher at Harvard Medical School and a staff writer for The New ...  more » magazine, explored the spiritual dimension of illness in his highly praised The Measure of Our Days. In Second Opinions, he focuses on the greatest challenge that patients and their families face--how to evaluate and act on medical advice.

Told in eight gripping clinical dramas, linked by Groopman's unique insider's vantage point, Second Opinions is a book that reveals the forces at play--from the realities of medical politics to the importance of patient intuition--in making critical medical decisions. As we accompany Groopman, we witness him and his wife as anxious young parents of an infant near-fatally misdiagnosed; a family trapped by an HMO's rote plan about what seemed like routine asthma; and doctors' conflicts over a patient with no clear diagnosis--a case where non-intervention turned out to be the wise, lifesaving choice. An extraordinary reading experience, Second Opinions takes us into the complex and ever-changing world of medicine where knowledge is imperfect, no therapy is without risks, no prognosis fully predictable. Readers will come away with a profoundly changed perspective and a new ability to make medical choices, from a doctor Publishers Weekly said writes "with the eye of a poet, the heart of a philosopher, and the voice of a novelist."
ISBN-13: 9780670888016
ISBN-10: 067088801X
Publication Date: 2/28/2000
Pages: 256
Rating:
  • Currently 4.8/5 Stars.
 3

4.8 stars, based on 3 ratings
Publisher: Viking Adult
Book Type: Hardcover
Members Wishing: 0
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badmom5 avatar reviewed Second Opinions on + 39 more book reviews
Thought provoking and touching. I really felt as if I was reading the medical dramas of my own family and friends. Very well written.


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