Saving the Soul of Medicine [Hardcover]

Margaret A. Mahony (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 15, 2000

Tale an intimate journey with a concerned physician during the last year of her participation in managed health care. Excerpts from her journal express the heart and soul of an anguished physician. Dismayed by the lack of understanding about the true impact of changes brought on by "managed care," she collected stories and viewpoints from her patients which dramatically capture their feelings and opinions about the new health care model. Essays also highlight the impact of managed care on physicians and other health care and professionals and employees. Their lives, careers, and aspirations have been painfully unsettled. Why do physicians cooperate in spite of their anger and misery? Several essays provide insight into this seemingly inexplicable behavior. The book explores the spiritual dimension of the physician-patient relationship; one that is excluded by present managed health care mandates. Viable alternatives and solutions are suggested for healing our current health care system.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Experienced in managed care and fee-for-service practice, gynecologist Mahony knows whereof she writes and writes well. The conflict between the two types of care is between avarice and ethics, she says. Managed care and insurance administrators claim they are cutting costs, but their insistence on bureaucratic rules frequently causes harmful, even dangerous, delays that ultimately cost businesses and patients more money. Mahony cites many such incidents, some of them appalling. Managed care sees medicine as a service, and that attitude is easily assumed by patients, who see an HMO visit as very like visiting, say, Jiffy Lube. Physicians and patients need time to develop trust and to form human relationships, however, and this is where soul enters the picture. Physician and patient must talk and listen to each other profoundly; doing otherwise makes the profession of medicine just an impersonal business. This remarkable book is no idealistic, ivory-tower exercise. Mahony writes of real physicians and patients and practically suggests how medical and hospital practice may be again what they should be. William Beatty
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Margaret Mahony MD

Product Details

• Hardcover: 363 pages
• Publisher: Robert Reed Publishers; 1st edition (August 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1885003358
• ISBN-13: 978-1885003355
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,630,230 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Must" reading for all health care professionals & activists, August 3, 2000

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Saving the Soul of Medicine (Hardcover)

Based on hundreds of true-life stories and viewpoints of patients, doctors, nursers, and health care professionals, Saving The Soul Of Medicine is an impressive and informative compendium of inspiring essays demonstrating the spiritual aspects of the physician/patient relationship -- and how to heal it when dysfunctions. Dr. Margaret Mahony is an activist for health care reform and maintains a private gynecology practice in San Jose, California. During her last years as a participating HMO physician, her growing concern for her patients' welfare moved her to collect actual patients stories that document a stunning indictment of a health care system gone awry. Saving The Soul Of Medicine not only reveals how contemporary health care service provider organizations have gone astray from the social and ethical commitments to serving the public, it also advocates for us to take back control of the medical industry as it is currently constituted in the form of managed health care practices as routinely employed by contemporary HMO organizations. Saving The Soul Of Medicine is "must" reading by all health care activists and reformers, health care service providers and insurers, legislators and health care policy makers, and the non-specialist general reader with a vital interest in this pressing and universal social issue.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Eye Opening Revelations, October 15, 2006

By 

Richard R. Blake (Bridgman, Michigan) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Saving the Soul of Medicine (Hardcover)

Dr. Margaret Mahony takes the reader behind the scenes and into the intimate world of a physician. Her book "Saving the Soul of Medicine" bears witness to the unpredictable, intense, and complex issues physicians face on a daily basis. She shares her experiences, thoughts, and reflections.

In the first section Dr. Mahony relates the stories of patients, caregivers, and members of the medical profession. These life experiences reveal the impact of "managed care" on doctor - patient relationships, patient care and treatment and the complexity of making the "system" work.

Dr. Mahony opens part two "Unsung Heroes and Heroines" this way: "There is a palpable uneasiness present in the entire medical community. `Entire' meaning all of the persons who work in this vast and complex enterprise. This includes the allied health staff, the nurses, the physicians, the educators, and all others who have daily contact with the human beings who come to them in their hour of need, seeking attention, seeking recovery, seeking healing."

The author then draws attention to changes in the quality of the nursing staff, formulary prescription policies, changes in the pharmaceutical industry, all issues currently being dictated by large HMO managed care decision makers. Trusting patients become vulnerable victims of an insurance driven system.

In part three of the book Mahony's describes what it means to be a physician. She details her role as authority figure, patient advocate, arbitrator, and the current blurring image of that role. She describes it as somewhere between "deity and a drain fixer."

Mahony concludes by heralding a call to reclaim the physician patient relationship. In addition she proposes two solutions to implement change. First is the medical savings account. Her second proposal calls for adoption of the Planetree philosophy. This is a non profit health care organization dedicated to creating health care environments that are nurturing, healing, and educational.

Mahony is sensitive to the principles of medical ethics set forth by the American Medical Association and is committed to providing her patients with a quality health care, well being, and healing. She is articulate, well qualified as a practicing physician, and an expert in women's health issues. She has been Director of the Women's Health Program at the Center for Integrative Medicine at O'Conner Hospital in San Jose, California.

This is a book that should be read by every patient and health care professional. It is a wake up call to action, a call to a passionate dedication to save the soul of medicine.