The Anatomy of Hope: How People Prevail in the Face of Illness [Paperback]

Jerome Groopman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 11, 2005

Why do some people find and sustain hope during difficult circumstances, while others do not? What can we learn from those who do, and how is their example applicable to our own lives? The Anatomy of Hope is a journey of inspiring discovery, spanning some thirty years of Dr. Jerome Groopman’s practice, during which he encountered many extraordinary people and sought to answer these questions.

This profound exploration begins when Groopman was a medical student, ignorant of the vital role of hope in patients’ lives–and it culminates in his remarkable quest to delineate a biology of hope. With appreciation for the human elements and the science, Groopman explains how to distinguish true hope from false hope–and how to gain an honest understanding of the reach and limits of this essential emotion.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for The Anatomy of Hope


“Provocative and important . . . a book about healing and life . . . Groopman . . . writes with a clear, crisp, unpretentious prose that keeps the reader interested and the pages turning. Like Oliver Sacks and Atul Gawande, he is a master storyteller who uses the examples of real patients to explain the mysteries of medicine.”
–Boston Sunday Globe

“The Anatomy of Hope sings with compassion and honesty.”
–ANITA DIAMANT

“Here is a man who has seen many deaths and many miracles and who writes about them with vigor and faith in the power of individuals to change their fates and in some power larger than all of us as well.”
–Los Angeles Times Book Review

“This book is the guide and the promise that all of us–patients and doctors alike–have been seeking, in the quest for hope amid the trials and fears of illness.”
–SHERWIN B. NULAND, M.D.


“The kind of hope–the kind of love–that shines through this book’s pages . . . will undoubtedly save many other patients and their families, in body and in spirit.”
–The Washington Post Book World

About the Author

Jerome Groopman, M.D., holds the Dina and Raphael Recanati Chair of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School and is the chief of experimental medicine at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. His research has focused on the basic mechanisms of blood disease, cancer, and AIDS. He is a staff writer in medicine and biology for The New Yorker and is the author of two popular books, The Measure of Our Days and Second Opinions, which were the inspiration for the television series Gideon’s Crossing. In 2000 he was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He lives with his wife and three children in Brookline, Massachusetts.


From the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks (January 11, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375757759
• ISBN-13: 978-0375757754
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.7 x 7.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #84,897 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jerome Groopman, M.D., holds the Dina and Raphael Recanati Chair of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and is chief of experimental medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. He has published more than 150 scientific articles. He is also a staff writer at The New Yorker and has written editorials on policy issues for the New Republic, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. His previous books include the New York Times bestseller The Anatomy of Hope, Second Opinions, and The Measure of Our Days. Groopman lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Anatomy of Hope:How Patients Prevail in the Face of Illness, March 19, 2007

By 

Jeanne Porrazzo "jeannemarie" (Hanoi) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Anatomy of Hope: How People Prevail in the Face of Illness (Paperback)

I devoured this book of pure inspiration while recovering from my second cancer diagnosis with a 17-month period. As soon as I finished reading it, I wrote to my several oncologists, at three hospitals on 2 continents, to recommed that it be placed in every oncology waiting area and every chemotherapy unit for patients and health professionals alike. Jerome Gropman, M.D. descibes his evolution as a a physican, from his years of training in its illness-detective work and business of interventions to becoming a compassionate, humanistic doctor who is capable of seeing whole lives in his patients. Always and everywhere, in every one, every day, searching for hope: in the body, mind and if there be one, soul or spirit of an individual.

Groopman quotes, "Beware how you take hope away from another human being." Oliver Wendell Holmes, 19th century Boston physician, poet and essayist.

Mainly, this book tells stories of Groopman's extraordianry patients, who, "led ...on a journey of discovery from a point where hope was absent to a place where hope could not be lost. ....learned the difference between true hope and false hope....Because when they held onto hope even when I could not, they survived. nNd one woman of deep faith showed me that even when there is no hope for the body, there is always hope for the soul. Each person helped me see another dimension of the anatomy of hope." from the Introduction

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A must for any professional in the field of oncology, September 9, 2007

By 

Virgina Woolf "Dr ATP" (Singapore, Singapore Singapore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Anatomy of Hope: How People Prevail in the Face of Illness (Paperback)

An excellent account of an oncologist's own experience,during his multiple years of training and practice, with a description of actual cases and how the different outcomes of these cases changed the author's approach and understanding of patients with serious and terminal illnesses -mostly cancer-.
This book is the product of the author's emotional journey through understanding how differently patients react to their own diagnoses and circumstances, and why physicians have to treat patients individually, and not as cases of this type or another type of cancer.
It is clear from the stories, that he realized that many patients do not want to hear about statistics, they don't want to know their possibility of survival in 5 years or 10 years in percentages, because all human beings hold on fast to hope, and this is what makes them survive in some incredible cases.
As a physician myself, I recommend this book to all medical students, all students of oncology, and professonals in the field. Please, don't forget that the last thing that a patient loses is hope, and in a background of truthfullness, try to help them hold onto this last resource, which may benefit their immune systems in the struggle against the disease.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book!, November 2, 2005

By 

EDR (Grand Forks, ND) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Anatomy of Hope: How People Prevail in the Face of Illness (Paperback)

Ever since I read this book, I've been recommending it to everyone I know: other cancer patients, my oncologist, the administrator at our local cancer clinic. As a highly respected physician and medical researcher, Groopman is well placed to make the argument he makes here: that a very important part of a doctor's job is to give his/her patients hope--not false hopes grounded in pop psychology, but hope based on medical research. And as someone who once found himself in the patient's shoes, he is also in the perfect position to give hope to others like himself.

Structured around well-told stories (not, as one reviewer put it, "Just a bunch of anekdotes (sic)") of actual patients, the book is very readable--and also very informative. It's "must" reading for any physician or medical student interested in the art and science of healing.