About the Author
Ernest H. Rosenbaum, M.D. (Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco; Associate Chief of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco/Mount Zion Medical Center; Medical Director, Better Health Foundation, San Francisco)
Ernest H. Rosenbaum's career has included a fellowship at the Blood Research Laboratory of Tufts University School of Medicine (New England Center Hospital) and MIT. He teaches at the University of California, San Francisco/Mount Zion Medical Center, and was the cofounder of the Northern California Academy of Clinical Oncology.
His passionate interest in clinical research and good communication with patients and colleagues has resulted in over 50 articles on cancer and hematology in various medical journals. He has participated in many radio and television programs and frequently lectures to medical and public groups.
He has coauthored Nutrition for the Cancer Patient and has written numerous books, including Living with Cancer, A Home Care Training Program for Cancer Patients, Decisions for Life, You Can Live 10 Years Longer with Better Health, A Comprehensive Guide for Cancer Patients and Their Families and Everyone's Guide to Cancer Therapy. For the Comprehensive Guide Dr. Rosenbaum et al. received Honorable Mention from the American Medical Writers Association for Excellence in Medical Publications and for Everyone's Guide Dr. Malin Dollinger, Dr. Rosenbaum and Greg Cable received the same honor.
Isadora R. Rosenbaum, M.A.
Isadora Rosenbaum is a medical assistant who has worked in immunology research and an oncology practice offering advice and psychosocial support. She coauthored The Comprehensive Guide for Cancer Patients and Their Families and wrote chapters in Everyone's Guide to Cancer Therapy, Living with Cancer and You Can Live 10 Years Longer with Better Health.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Rosenbaums have devoted much of their lives and an enormous amount of their boundless energies to the care, well-being and comfort of cancer patients and their families. Their indefatigable and unending efforts on behalf of their patients are widely recognized and lauded.
This book is a distillation of the Rosenbaums' shared experience gained from years of the constant study, communication and practice of sound and compassionate care for cancer patients. It will give patients and families everywhere an opportunity to benefit from the knowledge and wisdom of these two exceptional caregivers.
This guide will take cancer patients and their families, caregivers and advocates through the myriad of confusing and overlapping paths toward physical and emotional improvement and stability.
Readers will find orderly recommendations based on experience, good sense and science-recommendations designed to help cancer patients to maximize their chances to recover fully, or at least lead lives filled with joy, dignity, serenity and a sense of purpose.
The guide will also be useful to those care providers who have not been exposed to the different and challenging issues involved in helping cancer patients specifically.
A look at the contents reveals the book's comprehensive scope. The authors and contributors understand the heavy emotional toll that cancer has on patients, friends and family, just as they understand the debilitating physical toll it has on patients. They recognize and address the crucial role of a whole array of alternative therapies and complementary social, aesthetic, emotional and physical services in improving a patient's prognosis and quality of life. The authors emphasize the importance of strong personal support from family and friends.
The guide includes medical information about cancer-its causes, diagnosis and standard therapies. There is an exceptionally good chapter describing the elements of an honest and compassionate physician-patient relationship.
Most important, this book acknowledges the huge role that a cancer patient's own determination, positive attitudes and lifestyle and sense of fulfillment can play in his or her rehabilitation, quality of life and, sometimes, full recovery, while acknowledging the extreme anxiety, even terror, that a cancer diagnosis brings to all involved.
Thus the book devotes numerous chapters to topics such as personal coping, nutrition, exercise, sexuality and the concept of one's will to live.
Finally, this book is realistic. It includes a final frank and informative section on life and death issues.
But the bulk of the book is dedicated to living, not dying: to helping cancer patients concentrate on enhancing and cherishing the quality of their lives despite, and sometimes because of, their brush with this frequently life-threatening illness.
To my knowledge, this is the only book that looks so comprehensively at the full spectrum of cancer patients' needs and the medical and other services and supports that are designed to meet those needs.
It has been my personal and professional privilege to be associated with the Rosenbaums and all the other contributors to this guide. They have taught me the expert and compassionate ways to care for patients who encounter challenges every day that most of us fear to ever face.
This book reflects the standards of care that all of us at the UCSF/Mount Zion Cancer Center in San Francisco strive to implement every day with every patient and with their family and friends.
