Doctors and Patients: What We Feel about You by Peter H. Berczeller

From the Publisher

Dr. Berczeller, a practicing internist for over three decades, addresses the complex issues that beset both patients and doctors. He looks at areas like terminal illness, doctors' bills, "pulling the plug," living wills, sexual attraction between doctor and patient, and malpractice from a physician's point of view, and reveals some of the complex feelings that doctors have about their patients. Dr. Berczeller illustrates his points with true stories from his thirty years of practicing medicine, relating anecdotes about his own patients and colleagues that are amusing, touching, or provocative - but always human. He also gives hints on how to identify a "problem doctor," and what to look for in a good doctor. In Doctors and Patients, an honest and open discussion of the strengths and failings of the doctor/patient relationship, Dr. Berczeller opens up a dialogue that may help to heal the rift between these two groups.

Library Journal

This is a highly personalized, mostly anecdotal, extremely opinionated version of the old saw: Medicine is terrible, but my doctor is different. The author is a Viennese-born, Chicago-trained, New York City internist who has retired from practice and apparently needs to tell everyone how great he is, via this account of how doctors really feel about their patients. There is a wide range of ideas to be reckoned with, from a doctor's playing God to medical malpractice and dealing with the patient's family. The section on paying the doctor's bill might be of interest to those without any form of health insurance. Otherwise, this book is difficult to read, unless one likes to dwell on patient miseries, and really does not belong in any general library collection.-- Edward R. Pinckney, M.D., Beverly Hills, Cal.

BookList

The son of a physician, internist Berczeller had practiced for 36 years before he "quit" (that word is important to him) and wrote this engaging, thought-provoking book in which he frequently returns to the basic problem in physician-patient relationships, which is that the public just does not understand the way doctors think. He explores such potentially upsetting subjects as money, sex, the patient's family's role, the doctor as God, malpractice and mispractice (that is, a mistake rather than bad practice), whether doctor and patient can be friends, and how to handle death. He illustrates many of the problems these matters involve via case histories from his practice that generally expand or clarify his points, the most important of which are that patients must learn the importance of being forthright with their doctors about what is bothering them rather than just going to another doctor and that doctors must learn how to explain their decisions and recommendations and convince their patients to adopt them.

Product Details

• Table of Contents

Table of Contents