Proper Doctoring: A Book for Patients and their Doctors (New York Review Books (Paperback))

"People come to us for help. They come for health and strength." With these simple words David Mendel begins __Proper Doctoring__, a book about what it means (and takes) to be a good doctor, and for that reason very much a book for patients as well as doctors?which is to say a book for everyone. In crisp, clear prose, he introduces readers to the craft of medicine and shows how to practice it. Discussing matters ranging from the most basic?how doctors should dress and how they should speak to patients?to the taking of medical histories, the etiquette of examinations, and the difficulties of diagnosis, Mendel moves on to consider how the doctor can best serve patients who suffer from prolonged illness or face death. Throughout he keeps in sight the fundamental moral fact that the relationship between doctor and patient is a human one before it is a professional one. As he writes with characteristic concision, "The trained and experienced doctor puts himself, or his nearest... ""People come to us for help. They come for health and strength." With these simple words David Mendel begins Proper Doctoring, a book about what it means (and takes) to be a good doctor, and for that reason very much a book for patients as well as doctors--which is to say a book for everyone. In crisp, clear prose, he introduces readers to the craft of medicine and shows how to practice it. Discussing matters ranging from the most basic--how doctors should dress and how they should speak to patients--to the taking of medical histories, the etiquette of examinations, and the difficulties of diagnosis, Mendel moves on to consider how the doctor can best serve patients who suffer from prolonged illness or face death. Throughout he keeps in sight the fundamental moral fact that the relationship between doctor and patient is a human one before it is a professional one. As he writes with characteristic concision, "The trained and experienced doctor puts himself, or his nearest and dearest, in the patient's position, and asks himself what he would do if he were advising himself or his family. No other advice is acceptable; no other is justifiable." Proper Doctoring is a book that is admirably direct, as well as wise, witty, deeply humane, and, frankly, indispensable"--Provided by publisher. This “heart-stoppingly good” masterpiece about a crumbling love affair in 1950s New York perfectly captures “the desperate desire for love and the recognition that it is slipping away” ( Slate ). “One of the greatest, bleakest breakup stories ever told.” — The New York Observer New York in the 1950s. A man on a barstool is telling a story about a woman he met in a bar, early married and soon divorced, her child farmed out to her parents, good-looking, if a little past her prime. They’d gone out, they’d grown close, but as far as he was concerned it didn’t add up to much. He was a busy man. Then one day, out dancing, she runs into a rich awkward lovelorn businessman. He’ll pay for her to be his, pay her a lot. And now the narrator discovers that he is as much in love with her as she is with him, perhaps more, though it will take him a while to realize just how utterly lost he is. Executed with the cool smoky brilliance of a classic Miles Davis track, In Love is an unequaled exploration of the tethered—and untethered—heart.