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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 610
EAN num: 9780060847968
ISBN number: 0060847964
Label: Harper Perennial
Manufacturer: Harper Perennial
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 240
Printing Date: February 01, 2008
Publishing house: Harper Perennial
Release Date: January 29, 2008
Sale Popularity Level: 286223
Studio: Harper Perennial
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When someone is diagnosed with a serious illness, he or she is taking the very first step on a challenging and confusing journey. For many, it is as if they are traveling alone to someplace entirely new, with only faded directions back to their old lives. Often, even their loved ones can only guess at what they must be experiencing. Michael Stein, M.D., uses the stories of his own patients to consider the personal narrative of sickness. Beautifully written and keenly insightful, The Lonely Patient is a valuable book for patients and their caregivers as well as a probing inquiry into this universal experience.
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Rated by buyers 
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Michael Stern, M.D. has succeeded in writing a brief book that captures the isolation of someone who has been diagnosed with a serious, life threatening or terminal illness. Even more importantly, anyone who has symptoms for which there seems to be no diagnosis or relief needs to read "The Lonely Patient".
It should be handed out by hospital social workers to those involved in caregiving for those afflicted. The book should also be required reading in medical schools.
Dr. Stern interweaves the story of his brother-in-law stricken with a rare cancer of the sinuses with case studies of his own patients. He astutely divides his book into four parts: Betrayal, Terror, Loss and Loneliness and illustrates the doctor-patient relationship in a most enlightening manner.
This is a must read in the tradition of Dr. Sherwin B. Nuland's excellent book "How We Die Reflections on Life's Final Chapter".
Rated by buyers 
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This book is seriously depressing. It takes three or four themes and discusses each theme with regard to a particular patient, lasting way too long without learning anything new. It does not help you navigate the maze of chronic illness, as one book review claims.
Rated by buyers -
The Lonely Patient is a warm, deeply empathetic look at what one doctor observed about illness and human nature when he started looking at patients as full human beings experiencing the range of emotion that comes with disease and illness.
Stein thought he had a good idea of what illness was like through his practice. Then his brother-in-law Richard was diagnosed with cancer. Watching Richard helped Stein make some keen observations on what illness is truly like for a patient. He also includes the stories of some of his patients that illustrate certain experiences particularly well.
He sums up the overwhelming, consuming emotions experienced by the patient (jealousy, defiance, fear, anger, shame, dependency, vulnerability and loneliness) by setting out the book in four parts: Betrayal, Terror, Loss and Loneliness.
I really can't recommend this book highly enough. Never before have I had the experience of feeling understood and acknowledged for the wide range of emotions I have experienced as a sick person. Not only is this a must read for patients, it is the perfect way to help your family and friends understand what you are going through.
Rated by buyers 
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Dr. Michael Stein writes with depth and clarity about the difficult emotional and psychological dimensions of serious illness. He tells the stories of his patients - Joanna, Luke, Richard, Leila, Charlie - and we come to know them not so much by name as by the pain and emotional repercussions of the illness they are experiencing. Stein takes us on a journey that is not so much about medical diagnoses and treatment as it is about the inner world of these patients who have serious and debilitating diseases. He uses their experiences to explore a world of deep and sometimes hidden feelings beneath the physical pain - feelings of betrayal, terror, loss, and loneliness. It can be a bleak and fear-filled terrain, but Stein is also able to capture the humor, tenderness, and hope that is present as he journeys with his patients.
He begins and ends the book with the story of his brother-in-law, Richard, an artist, who was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. Richard's story becomes a way for Stein to tell of his own evolution from a bright, young physician who early in his career "perhaps concentrated too much on how people became ill...and (could) be "fixed," without trying to imagine what it's like to be ill." Now, some 20 years later, Stein reveals how much Richard and his patients have changed his understanding of this "interior world of illness" and pain. He paints wonderfully vivid word-pictures of his patients' lives, the fears and frustrations they face: Joanna can't walk through the grocery store without searing pain in her feet; Leila can't dress like a teenager anymore because of her disfiguring scar; Luke's fear of surgery keeps him withdrawn and fearful. Dr. Stein describes how their illness keeps them feeling separated and isolated from our everyday world which places so much value on good health, independence, and control of one's mental and physical well-being.
Stein writes thoughtfully and eloquently about illness and its effects on a person's life, but at times he makes such sweeping generalizations that he does not take into account the deeply individual and personal responses that serious illness evokes. Nor does he touch on some of the very important spiritual concerns and questions that can arise for a patient: is God punishing me? Has God abandoned me? Are there miracles? Does prayer help? He does not mention the possibility that illness can also bring about a sense of calm, a deepening faith and trust in the presence of God or a higher power.
Stein is most successful as he reminds us of the importance of being present, of listening, of acknowledging another's pain. In his own journey as a physician, he has come to understand that "sometimes the best I can do for a patient is to ask, "What is it like?" and to wait for the response. Stein has learned not to back away from another's fear, anger, or sense of brokenness. He works to establish a level of trust that allows the patients to tell their stories and know that they will be heard, for "when a patient tells a doctor about himself, it is the beginning of escaping loneliness and shortening the distance he's moved into the chamber of illness."
This is a wonderfully readable book for anyone who has been a patient or has provided care for them. Stein's clear interest in his patients, his strong story-telling skills, and his willingness to share his own personal and professional journey add up to a book that deepens any reader's understanding of serious, life-changing illness.
Rated by buyers -
A Crohn's patient since 1973 and a chronic pain patient since 2004, I was drawn to this title. I also buy the nonfiction books for a medium-sized library. This book would be of enormous value to all patients and physicians - should be required reading in medical school, certainly by pain specialists.
For chronic pain/illness sufferers, buy your own copy so that you can underline sentences or paragraphs that you would like your family/caregivers/friends to read.
It was of untold value to me to know that my loneliness (even though I have a family) was intimately understood by one person out there.
Thank you, Dr. Stein.
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