8 Introduction
prompted these physicians to reflect on how they had distanced them-
selves from patients, and to learn and unlearn much. Many subsequently
tried to equalize the power differential with their patients, but faced chal-
lenges in doing so.
This book explores these individuals’ complex odysseys and worlds:
how they traveled from the land of healing to that of disease. These
narratives offer patients and family members practical advice: how to
be ‘‘better’’ patients, and what realistically to expect as a patient with a
serious illness, having to communicate with providers. These doctors
often attained wisdom that they later tried to convey to their patients
and students. Patients feel disempowered in the system. Here, when sick,
even doctors experienced certain barriers and problems. Knowing how a
physician handles these same obstacles as a patient (what works and
doesn’t) can be useful—how best to choose and interact with profes-
sionals and institutions, and what difficulties and assistance to anticipate.
These doctors probed the meanings of work and professional identity
today. In so doing, they provide a vivid cross-section chronicling Amer-
ican medicine today.
More broadly, for general readers and social scientists as well, these
tales of struggles with pain and displays of courage in the face of disease
are fundamentally human, touching primal issues of life and death, and
thus illuminating vital domains. These interviewees opened up their in-
ner lives with deep and moving authenticity, providing key insights on
how men and women in general respond to crises and reconstruct their
lives. They revealed how they coped with uncertainty, anxiety, and de-
spair, and found hope. In Man’s Search for Meaning (8), Victor Frankl
drew on his experiences in Auschwitz to describe how all humans seek
meaning in their lives. Similarly, the psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, based
on his studies of survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki over half a century
ago, explored how humans pursue ‘‘connections’’ to ultimate sources of
meaning through different modes: spirituality, work, family, nature, and
‘‘experiential transcendence’’ (9). These doctors limned the existential
crises they faced today, the ways they struggled within the confines of
their lives—used what they had and knew—piecing together their own
particular education and experience to assist them in reconstructing a
life. For many doctors, work provided meaning. Once ill, they now bat-
tled to find renewed purpose and sustenance. As their work threatened
to slip away, many strove to clutch on to, or replace, it.