The Poison Review

As a follow up to the very important article TPR linked to in a previous post,  the New York Review of Books website has posted a fascinating interview with Dr. Jerome Groopman that is also essential reading.  The following excerpt will give insight into the approach to medicine he advocates:

“I think it’s important that a physician try to understand the experience of illness as best as he or she can. It’s clear in certain necessary but difficult and disfiguring surgeries like mastectomy. There are patients who experience gastrointestinal disease, colitis, inflammatory bowel disease. And these are sensitive and often highly symbolic parts of our bodies. It’s incumbent upon a doctor who cares for patients dealing with maladies that affect these organs that have resonance with us on a symbolic level to probe and to try to understand the experience of the patient.

And it varies. Some patients may see malfunction in such parts of the body in a highly charged way, and others may not. And in making decisions in trying to help the person make choices that potentially could be life-saving, you want to be sure that you have as much insight as you can into how the person thinks about his or her body and how those thoughts and feelings factor into their preferences.

It’s a lot more than what you would find in some algorithm or guideline that says, well, if you have this tumor, this is what you do. If you have this inflammation in the bowel, this is what you do. That is not enough.”

The interview is also available as a podcast.