The Measure of Our Days: A Spiritual Exploration of Illness

Rating:
Summary: Somewhat engaging but mostly pretentious
Review: Although the eight patients profiled in this slim volume have interesting stories to tell, their experiences are diluted in the telling. Jerome Groopman, incongruously, tries to further the Cult of the Physician: Doctors are supermen, they can do no wrong. While reading about these patients' experiences, you start to notice that Groopman appears to be the most wonderful person in the entire world. He's a professor at a prestigious medical school, with his own laboratory and staff; he maintains a full clinical schedule; he writes for the New York Times, New Yorker, and New Republic; he's an attentive family man with lots of friends. But, lo and behold, he also has time to take a deep, personal interest in each patient that comes his way. He sits with them for hours at a time, he goes to their homes to check on their progress, he visits them in foreign countries after attending medical conferences, he always returns phone calls. More importantly, he always knows what he's doing, he always has something good and interesting to offer his patients. Groopman essentially updates the old model of the physician-patient relationship, where the eminent physician dictates a wise and enlightened course of treatment for a supplicatory patient.

In the end, his self-presentation defies belief, and coats the otherwise positive and amazing aspects of the stories he tells with a glib patina.

Rating:
Summary: A Physician Without A Flaw
Review: Good literature requires a good character. This story has eight interesting, poignant characters, men and women that the author learns to understand and love as he treats them. He is good at finding their strengths and also their flaws. The book is set up in a series of eight vignettes, so we get to know each individual patient for only about 30 pages before we're onto the next; however, Dr. Jerome Groopman remains throughout. Unfortunately, unlike his patients, we see no flaw in him. He is the stoic physician, admirable yes, but slightly uninteresting to read. Another reviewer pointed to his 'ego,' though he does not come off as arrogant as much as 'flawless.' We are not bothered by his egotism, but rather bothered becuase we don't see a physician change over time. From the beginning to the end, we see the perfect doctor. He is more or less humble, but also more or less a stagnant, flat character. His stories are deep and affecting, but he, unfortunately, comes off as mysterious and shallow most of the time. That said, the book is highly recommended for its sympathetic portrayal of people with disease and its well written, nonclinical style.

For truly great medical literature, also read My Own Country by Dr. Abraham Verghese. Here we see the physician who is not just a hero--he is a flawed human being and he is incredibly interesting.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding treatment of a difficult subject
Review: I knew of Dr. Groopman from his occaisonal medical column in the New Yorker. I am a physician but my appeal in reading his column was that he wrote with deep humanity, making medical problems accessible to the layman. By giving up my coffee habit I realized having that wired up feeling all day clouded my concentration. Did you know one cup of joe raises your blood pressure by 14%! Fortunately for me I was able to find a wonderful tasting replacement made from soyabeans. You brew like coffee and it even helps lower my cholesterol. I found it online at www.S o y c o ff e e. c o m. Gaining this understanding will effect every move you make from this point on and will bring with it the necessity to share it. Measure of our Days makes even better reading than the New Yorker columns. The book describes in detail how he serves not only as as physician for his patients, but also as friend, psychologist, negotiator. He incorporates his own life experience, having lost his father suddenly at age 55, his religious knowledge, and his deep humanism into his work, in many cases treating his patients as he would his own family. My only question is: How does he have enough time for family, clinical work, research, and writing???

Rating:
Summary: Compassion of a physician
Review: This book genuinely portrays the dynamic aspect of a patient-doctor relationship. Jerome Groopman is an extraordinary writer and physician who is able to touch the hearts of his patients. Through his eight powerful and compelling stories, he is able to give the reader insight and capture the life lessons learned from these terminally ill patients.

Dr. Groopman leads us through the lives of eight patients with a terminal illness. The book starts with Kirk, an aggressive businessman who is afflicted with kidney cancer and is determined to fight his battle with a new chemotherapy treatment only to realize that his life has been empty. Groopman then moves on to describe a Catholic boy who underwent successful therapy from leukemia, but died of AIDS contracted from a blood transfusion. Another patient, a research fellow in Groopman's own research laboratory has AIDS from a blood transfusion because he was a hemophiliac. My favorite story is Cindy, a single woman with AIDS who boldly fights with Groopman over her fervent desire to adopt a child. Each tragic account illuminates the empathy and compassion Dr. Groopman has toward his patients. He would hug them, hold their hand, listen to them, and share their tears.

The Measure of Our Days is a powerful book and the reader gains and understanding of the frailty of human life. The dialogue between Dr. Groopman and his patients is compelling. By reading this book, we can appreciate and value our own lives and the life lessons learned from these terminally ill patients. Definitely a good book, especially for people who are interested in pursuing a career in medicine.

Rating:
Summary: Compassion of a physician
Review: This book presents excellent accounts of a doctor who, above all else, is a good clinician. The accounts contain personal discussion, interesting patients, hard science, and lessons about both medicine and life. Admittedly, this last phrase, "lessons about both medicine and life" sounds cliche but as an obviously empathetic, observant and disciplined clinician, Groopman is well prepared to talk about the serious,universal issues that often arise in his specific line of work.

Though he is a superspecialist, a nice aspect of this book is that Groopman is very objective about medicine overall. The technology he spends works on in lab is not at all treated as a panacea. Simultaneously, he does not shun or wholly embrace alternative medicine. It is simply another example of why he is a good clinician, qualifying the book further.

An excellent, very fast read.

Rating:
Summary: Detailed tales of a good clinician
Review: This book presents excellent accounts of a doctor who, above all else, is a good clinician. The accounts contain personal discussion, interesting patients, hard science, and lessons about both medicine and life. Admittedly, this last phrase, "lessons about both medicine and life" sounds cliche but as an obviously empathetic, observant and disciplined clinician, Groopman is well prepared to talk about the serious,universal issues that often arise in his specific line of work.

Though he is a superspecialist, a nice aspect of this book is that Groopman is very objective about medicine overall. The technology he spends works on in lab is not at all treated as a panacea. Simultaneously, he does not shun or wholly embrace alternative medicine. It is simply another example of why he is a good clinician, qualifying the book further.

An excellent, very fast read.

Rating:
Summary: Medical miracles at the crossroads of life and death . . .
Review: This is a fine book, a thought-provoking and informative portrayal of a Harvard physician working to save the lives of patients with blood diseases and cancer. However, its title is somewhat misleading. Groopman is first and last a scientist, and there is little that is "spiritual" or inspirational about his point of view. When he speaks of miracles, it is the advances of medicine in the laboratory he is talking about.

Each chapter in the book is devoted to a particular patient, and what Groopman gives readers is a case history describing their symptoms of illness, diagnosis, and courses of treatment. He also devotes attention to the personalities of each of his patients, particularly as they face life and death crossroads in their lives. We come to appreciate that his strength as a doctor is in a combination of training, skill, and an ability to regard patients as individual persons, not just cases of disease.

Groopman's approach as a physician is to use medical technology to help his patients buy time, thus allowing them to achieve the full "measure of their days," even when that is only a few months or years of remission. While in the early stages some patients seem fatalistic about their potentially fatal illnesses, he discovers that nearly all come around to his belief that life is too precious to surrender when medicine can postpone death.

I recommend this book for its clear-eyed and heart-felt description of doing battle against disease and for its well-detailed portrayals of doctor-patient relationships. As companion volumes, I'd also recommend David Biro's "100 Days," in which a doctor tells of his own bone marrow transplant, and Abraham Verghese's "My Own Country," an Indian-American doctor's AIDS memoir.


Rating:
Summary: Great book
Review: This is a great book. It is very well-written, easy to read, and educational. The author has the wisdom of Maimonides, himself. He deals with his patients as people. He describes the characters beautifully. He describes the various diseases so that they are easy to understand. I'm presently reading about the next-to-the-last of the eight people, but I am so impressed with this book that I wanted to write my review now. I can honestly say that I wish I were as brilliant, compassionate and thoughtful a doctor as he. I did not find the book depressing. I think this book should be required reading for anyone who is thinking of going into the field of medicine.

Rating:
Summary: Agape Hospice Volunteers, Calgary AB
Review: We read and discussed "The Measure of Our Days" as part of our volunteer education and support programme, and felt that the book both educated and supported us. What more could we ask?
The eight case studies which Dr. Groopman presents were not difficult reading for busy lives. They provided helpful topics of discussion ( recognising and helping spiritual pain; providing fulfilling experiences at life's end; redeeming the sense of a wasted life, for example) We also felt that the book taught or reinforced principles for our own lives, when the end is not yet in sight. (the power of openness, of listening, of relationships, of touch.)
It was clear from the book that Dr. Groopman has had his own personal experience of the devastation of pain, dependency and hopelessness. This makes him an effective physician on several levels, and a sympathetic writer of the eight individual stories.