What I've Learned from You: The Lessons of Life Taught to a Doctor by His Patients

by Scott Kelly, Paul McCarthy (Editor), Karen Minster (Designed by)

Overview

What I've Learned from You is the story of the lessons of life taught to a doctor by his patients. It takes us on a journey from an inner-city trauma center to the bedside of a dying cancer patient. It explores human relationships and gives an intimate view into the window of the human condition. On the road to becoming a physician, Dr. Kelly longed to find serenity in a world of conflicting ideas and aspirations. The demands of his medical training left little time for personal growth so he reached out to those around him. He took notes in a journal on the lessons of life he learned from his patients and their families. They opened their hearts and exposed their wounds. He paid attention and listened, and his patients became his teachers. Late one winter night in 2006, while leafing through old papers, he came across his journal. It inspired this book, which began as an effort to preserve the stories to share with his children. Maybe, he thought, they could learn from them too. To his surprise, as he wrote, the stories evolved and beautifully took on a life of their own. Now Dr. Kelly shares them with his readers, so we can all learn from the wisdom and experiences of these remarkable individuals. What I've Learned from You is the story of love and pain and healing and sickness and birth and dying and all of the beautiful things in between. It brings compassion and empathy back to the art of medicine.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780991274314
Publisher:	Art Heals Media
Publication date:	03/27/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	204
File size:	387 KB

Editorial Reviews

2015-05-26
Kelly's memoir explores the idea that medicine not only mends the body, but can also heal the soul.This charming, touching collection of stories about medical work from a seasoned physician gives insights into the doctor-patient relationship. Kelly was driven to become a doctor by the feeling of security he experienced when attending a medical office as a child. Here, he considers the many lessons learned from his patients. From the shock of encountering his first cadaver in medical school—the instructor reminded the class that the body must be treated like that of a loved one—to the ache of losing a patient, Kelly recounts intimate conversations and situations that mark him as an attentive, compassionate professional. He writes of medical school and his first medical residency and recounts the learning curves, trials, and errors that characterized those years ("Chris was the first person I'd watched die right in front of me….And I felt like a failure for not being able to save him"). Though concerned with the tribulations and idiosyncrasies of the medical occupation specifically, the memoir shows how any profession in which one encounters the misfortunes and tragedies of strangers can drive one to be more empathetic. The book, then, is just as much an exploration of the meaning of life and morality in the face of mortality—a fact we are made all the more conscious of by illness and injury—as it is an exploration of the emotional trajectory of one man's experience of becoming a doctor. Deeply humane and eminently readable, this book provides a model for mutual understanding between doctors and those they treat. More than this, though, it emphasizes the importance of listening: to the voices, as well as the bodies, of others.An intelligent, sensitive reflection on the practice of medicine.

Kirkus Reviews