Customer Reviews

Something for the Pain: Compassion and Burnout in the ER

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a former ER doc, one of the things that drives me insane is reading books where the physicians are so compassionate, I wouldn't recognize them among the dozens (hundreds?) of docs I've worked with over the years. Sure, we're all nice to little old ladies from nice families but it's the six sigma guy who can be that way with the drug addict in the middle of the night. Outsiders - our friends and family even - will never understand the daunting nature of this profession. This is an even handed narrative of the frustrating day to day work that emergency docs (and nurses) do, usually without thanks. Good job, Paul, for telling it like it is.

This book was refreshing. Dr Austin allows the reader to see what it is really like for a person who works with life and death every day. I was thrilled that this was not just another medical book, but one about a real person and the joys and struggles he faced. Anyone who has ever worked in an ED will be able to relate to the frustration and emotional feelings he dealt with. This book made me laugh but it also brought me to the brink of tears. It was a great read and I am recommending it to all my friends, especially the ones who don't work in health care. I certainly hope he has another book in him!!

The vast majority of books written by doctors are filled with details about cases and diseases; rarely touching on the struggles these individuals face at home due to extended work hours, stressful decision making and sleep deprivation. It was refreshing to read a book written by a doctor that examined his personal, as well as professional, life.

In "Something for the Pain", Dr. Austin exams cases that bothered him, but rather than examine exactly what when wrong with the case, he examines how that case made him feel and why. Not just medically, but mentally as well. He also takes a deep and very honest look into how his job created problems with his home life. Along the way we get an insight into life in an ER.

During a volunteer career as a firefighter, with a stint in ambulances, I can state that the book not only sounds true, but caused my nerves to twitch just a little. He hit some feeling and emotions dead on, and I have to admit that I hoped these were feelings I had buried. His discussion of treating drunks was as close to real as I have ever seen.

This is a wonderful book with a lot of insight to offer. My only complaint was that the chapters didn't line up chronologically, so when I was trying to compare work with his home relationships, I occasionally had problems. This is a pretty simple thing and could be fixed by changing the chapter order. Overall, an excellent read and maybe a book we all need to read before we get caught in the machinery of the ER.

Something for the Pain: One Doctor's Account of Life and Death in the ER has much to recommend it, but ultimately the author tries to serve too many masters in too few pages.

The title led me to belief the focus would be on Dr. Austin's hospital cases, but the book was split between his career and his family. In theory, that's even better, because it interests me to know how people in stressful jobs learn to cope and keep their personal lives together.

The problem is that the book is short and by the end I don't feel like either aspect is fleshed out. Dr. Austin wisely tried to connect the joint focuses by pairing the ER stories with how they resonate with his life outside of the hospital, but there was just not enough room to really do either full justice.

There are two really potentially good books here that could have combined into one great one, but neither tale was detailed enough to lead to a fully satisfying experience.

A theme of the book is the author's struggle to find a balance between compassion and professional distance. It's a great topic. However, his writing voice errs on the side of detachment, and there is a feeling that he's still protecting himself from feeling too much. I don't know this is the case, but the tone comes across as if the doctor more than the man is in the writer's chair.

I'm glad I read this book, I admire the writer, and I would love to hear/read more about his experiences, but this particular book didn't quite meet my expectations from when I selected it, nor did it become the even better book that it wanted to be.

I picked up this book as an ER physician's wife who is in a completely different line of work. It was great to see another person's perspective of life in the ER to get a better idea of what the work entails. The book was incredibly informative as well as witty, humorous, lighthearted and heartbreaking all at the same time. The book does an excellent job of taking us through the experiences of an ER doctor (including flashbacks of the medical training) by explaining procedures, specific terms and etiquette, the hospital system, etc, while the whole time remaining accessible to readers not in the field. This is a great book for someone who is not in the medical field who would like to understand what doctors go through (and why the long wait in the ER), the emotions and decisions they wrestle with, and the juggling of work and family life. I would give this book my highest recommendation.

Having spent 30 years on the front line of health care ... with many of them in the ED ... I was thrilled to see an author describe "our" lives so well. I laughed out loud, I cried a few tears, my heart sank ... it took me back to places in my own career ... that were so similar to his experiences. Thanks for putting our experiences, into words ... and making a little bit of sense out of it all!

As a "retired" paramedic with eighteen years on an ambulance, I read every memoir written by someone in the emergency services arena I can find. Many are mediocre, some are good, and a precious few are written on a higher level - what actually might be called literature. Dr. Austin's look at his life as an emergency physician belongs in that latter category along with Report From Engine Company 82 by Dennis Smith and Population 485: Getting to Know Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time by Michael Perry. The thing that sets these books apart is the clarity with which they present the author's work and life, the honesty they bring to their storytelling, and the craft of their prose. Dr. Austin's book was a joy to read. For anyone who's worked in that kind of environment, they will find a lot of "you got it" moments. For anyone who hasn't experienced that environment, you will have your eyes opened and you will learn about a place that is a constant source of experience and learning. It's obvious this book was a labor of love. I'm hoping someone who writes this well will put another book on my bookshelf someday.

Paul Austin's "Something for the Pain" is a poignant and candid account of the author's thirteen grueling years as an emergency room physician. Some might consider this to be one of the worst jobs in medicine. ER docs put in long hours, endure erratic sleeping and eating patterns, suffer disruptions in their personal lives, make life or death decisions quickly, and have very little opportunity to follow up on individual patients.

Yet, for Paul Austin, becoming an ER doc was a no-brainer. He enjoys the adrenaline fueled atmosphere of the emergency room, the ability to employ his considerable skills to diagnose and treat people from all walks of life with a wide variety of complaints, and the chance to work with a team of close-knit colleagues. "Night is the time when lucky people get to sleep." For him, night and day became interchangeable, increasing the likelihood that he would miss vital clues and make errors in judgment. He prayed that he would "make it to daylight without hurting someone."

The author gives us valuable insight into how his irregular schedule affected his family. We get to know his supportive wife, Sally, and his children, one of whom has Down syndrome. Austin's medical anecdotes are a familiar list of the wide variety of mishaps and illnesses that can befall a human being: a woman with recurring headaches could have a potentially fatal condition; a violent drunk threatens his doctors and nurses and refuses to participate in his care; a pregnant teenager appears to be on the verge of miscarrying; a man comes in experiencing chest pains, but it is unclear whether or not he should be admitted. Fortunately, there are many routine cases that are easy to treat, such as a broken arm or an ear infection. Austin relishes the challenge of bringing "order to a chaotic tangle of medical and social imperatives." He must work rapidly and efficiently in order to keep the ER running smoothly.

The downside of Austin's career is that its demanding pace and unrelenting pressure can lead to cynicism, loss of empathy, and in the worst case scenario, emotional meltdowns. The author's fluid and engaging writing style draws us in as he candidly describes the speed bumps that threatened to derail his career and hurt his marriage. We learn about his successes and failures, his fears and resentments, and his determination to become a psychologically healthier and more fulfilled person. Dr. Austin is justifiably gratified that he has been privileged to "dip into people's lives for brief but important slivers of time." Not only has he provided his patients with "something for the pain," but he has learned to deal with the fatigue and anguish that all emergency room physicians inevitably experience. Readers who like realistic narratives about the practice of medicine will find this book thoroughly absorbing.

I just finished reading Dr. Paul Austin's book and enjoyed every minute of it. For almost every person's case he described I had memories of my experiences which were very similiar. I have been there like him as a doc, though I'm over twenty years his senior. His descriptions of the chaos, clamor, urgency, raw emotions, fatigue, and even smells of night shifts in a busy ER brought it all back again. He was very wise to accept his wife's advice early on to get "Therapy". Had he not done so he would not be the husband, father, and physician he is today. He took therapy seriously and learned some essential coping skills. These were not taught in medical school, though they are essential to live successfully while caring for others. I wish I had learned them many years sooner. You must be able to feel pain and sadness and deal with them in a healthy manner to feel joy. Helping a person or persons in distress, maybe only a few a day, is the true calling of a Physician and primarily what he or she should aspire to. His description of learning to vary his emotional permeability or aperture is excellent, and it should be repeated often to young medical students who don't have any idea what a life and profession enhancing necessity that skill can be. I refer to it "Rapidly Oscillating Skin", i.e. from thick skinned one minute rapidly changing to thin skinned the next as required by the situation.

There is much experience and wisdom in this small book. I would recommend it to any doctor in training, or later, with repeated reviews prn. Nice work, Dr. Austin!

I enjoyed Something for the Pain from start to finish, and I learned something about life in the ER room, as well as something about how that life impacts the people who attend to our medical emergencies. As hard as it is for individual families to deal with medical crisis, I saw how a daily slate of such things could tax both the professional and private life of the doctors who dedicate their careers to helping save lives. Dr. Austin weaves case stories with incidents from his family life, drawing from his experience as a student and doctor, and ultimately provides a generous and honest account of the trials and triumphs he's faced over the years he's dedicated to medicine. Reading his work, one can easily imagine the fast-paced ER; the patients, nurses and doctors inside it; as well as how easily we could ourselves lie on one of those beds, and how we rely on the compassion and competence of our doctors.