Searching for the Best Medicine

The Life and Times of a Doctor and Patient

This book describes the life and times of a physician-scientist over the last half-century. Part One is about the author's struggle with colon cancer and the lessons he learnt from the experience; Part Two is about his life growing up, the pretzel bakery, his family, being educated at Bronx Science, Columbia College, Harvard Medical School, and his medical training at the Boston City Hospital and the NIH. Part Three, the major portion of the book, describes the author's experiences as a practicing physician and hematologist at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center over 40 years. It also presents his views on what it takes to be a good doctor and to practice good medicine. Part Four is about medicine today, the crisis in medical care and in obtaining affordable health insurance in the United States, and potential solutions to these problems. And finally, it also describes the author's views on how changes in America over the past few decades have transformed our society from that of the meritocracy as known in the early days to that of the present society dominated by financial considerations.

Contents:

• The Doctor as Patient:

  • The Big C
  • Getting Better

• Growing Up:

  • In the Beginning
  • College Days
  • Decisions, Decisions
  • Basic Training

• Doing Medicine:

  • A Special Calling
  • Making Diagnoses
  • Columbia-Presbyterian Medicine
  • Becoming a Hematologist
  • Hematology and Oncology
  • Doing Hematology
  • Sickle Cell Disease
  • Special People

• Medicine Today:

  • The Practice of Medicine
  • The Business of Medicine
  • Solutions
  • Changing Times
  • The Last Chapter

Readership: Educated people with no special medical or scientific training as well as those who do; people who read the New York Times, college and medical students, physicians, nurses, medical personnel as well as people who are just generally interested in medicine.
Key Features:

• A frank account of the life and times of an American physician scientist chronicling how American society has changed over the last half-century
• A frank discussion of a physician's response to his own illness
• A detailed discussion of good medical practice in the United States in internal medicine and hematology