Customer Reviews

Doctor

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In this honest and entertaining book, Dr. Edward Rosenbaum lets doctors know what it is really like to be a patient.

Dr. Rosenbaum constructs a remarkable narrative of his successful, yet painful battle with cancer and the medical system.

Dr. Rosenbaum's succint, humorous and imaginative style remarkablly illustrates his personal, familial and professional relationships during his ordeal.

Like most great works, the book is far better than the movie. THE DOCTOR is an essential-read for anyone in the health care profession.

Dr. Edward E. Rosenbaum was diagnosed with cancer of the larynx at age 70. This book is a memoir of both his experiences as a doctor and as a patient, caught in the inexorable, sometimes painful, often humiliating round of cancer treatment. His cancer remained misdiagnosed for several months by a physician-acquaintance of Dr. Rosenbaum's, who had not kept himself up-to-date on the latest diagnostic tools available to his specialty. When Dr. Rosenbaum finally gets a second opinion from a younger doctor, who knows how to use a fiberoptic nasopharyngoscope, he must decide on a method of treatment. As most of us cancer patients do, whether or not we are physicians ourselves, he let his doctor make the choice for him: radiation.

Anyone who has ever undergone a course of radiation treatments will empathize with Dr. Rosenbaum's grimly humorous description of his own therapy: stripped of his civilian clothes; bound into an awkward position on the radiation god's altar, while its priests sprint out of the room. You are never more alone than in that treatment room. The radiation god manifests itself in a series of clunks and whirrs. You freeze into place, afraid that a single movement will cause the deadly beam to go astray and blind you or pierce your heart. After the exposure has taken place, you can never be certain if anything happened: if your cancerous flesh was actually attacked. Dr. Rosenbaum says:

"They tell me that I am being treated by X ray. X means unknown. I can't see, hear, taste, feel, or smell the X rays. I have no way of knowing if anything is happening or if the machine is working...The radiologist assures me that something will happen and asks me to have faith. Is he a priest?"

The author's primary physician is terse, sometimes unapproachable. He cancels appointments with Dr. Rosenbaum. When they do meet, the patient hides symptoms such as reddened skin from his doctor, afraid that he will be told he is dying.

Cancer changes all of his relationships. Some friends desert him. He is no longer the omnipotent physician. He is mortal, perhaps near death. They can't deal with that.

I read this autobiography in one sitting, fascinated by Dr. Rosenbaum's transformation from all-powerful physician to powerless, fearful patient, then back to physician again, but with the additional role of patient-advocate. Most of us choose to forget our experiences in the cancer ward, but this author courageously shares his year as a cancer patient with us.