Customer Reviews

Treatment Kind and Fair: Letters to a Young Doctor (Art of Mentoring)

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I can't remember a time when I didn't read Perri Klass's books and stories. As I recall, she was featured in the New York Times as a writing prodigy, and she continued to write when she made the improbable choice to pursue a medical career. As she pointed out, she wasn't particularly gifted in science and math. No one in her family studied medicine. But that's what she wanted. Her "becoming a doctor" stories will be relevant to anyone choosing a career, in or out of medicine.

Klass's gift lies in her ability to humanize whatever she describes and add her own unique combination of earth-mother warmth and cool analysis. So she describes her own experiences as a patient in a hospital, her interviews with young medical students and her memories of good and bad decisions over the years. It's like reading about the mom next door, a totally ordinary person...and oh yes, she's also a doctor and famous writer.

I don't relate this book to TV programs like Greys Anatomy and ER. Frankly, I don't like those programs. I compare it more to Jerome Groopman's book, How Doctors Decide, and Atul Gawande's Better. Like them, Klass accepts all the downsides of contemporary medicine but also appplauds both the field and her profession. She writes about getting into the lives of her patients. She remembers calling hospitals from distant vacations, tracking down test results and follow-ups.

As a pediatrician, she seems more humane and caring than most doctors. She acknowledges that pediatrics brings special joys -- you rarely deal with end-of-life issues. I believe pediatrics attracts the more humane physicians, leaving the rest of us with those who view patients as money-generating numbers.

Perhaps the most controversial (yet interesting) elements of the book are those related to medical decision-making. In one place, Klass reports a satiric look at how decisions get made: arrogance and prestige carry more weight than we would like to believe.

Klass also reports research suggesting that for a particular medical condition, any one of three options would be equally justifiable - intervention, tests, or watching and waiting. Thus it seems reasonable to default to parental preference.

But is it? Each option carries different costs. If my insurance company willingly pays for the most expensive option, what happens to my premiums - and the likelihood of being turned down for my own preference?

Elsewhere, Klass describes the frustrations of dealing with the realities of 21st century medicine - paperwork, HPAA and more. We soon realize that much or medicine remains more art than science and doctors are still human.

This book appeared to little acclaim just as Michael Moore's Sicko hits the big screen. It offers an interesting contrast - a micro, physician-based view, rather than the macro consumer view. If you're interested in a rational physician perspective, or just enjoy Perri Klass, Treatment Kind and Fair would be a good addition to your own bookshelf.

Harvard Medical School graduate Perri Klass is a pediatrician as well as a wife and mother. In "Treatment Kind and Fair--Letters to a Young Doctor," the author shares the considerable wisdom that she has acquired over the years. Dr. Klass practiced primary care pediatrics in Boston for more than a decade, did infectious disease work at the Boston University School of Medicine, and has been involved with a program called "Reach Out and Read," which "promotes reading aloud and early literacy." She is currently a professor of journalism and pediatrics at New York University.

Klass discusses many of the challenges that prospective physicians face: getting into medical school (no mean feat); once admitted, memorizing an incredible amount of technical information quickly; adjusting to the responsibilities of being an intern and then a resident; learning how to communicate effectively with patients and their families; avoiding medical errors and gracefully handling the inevitable mistakes that do occur; and facing a patient's death without succumbing to despair. "By entering this profession, you will grapple with uncertainty and insecurity, with tragedy and pain, and above all, you will meet people's needs."

Klass covers a great deal of territory in this relatively slender volume. She discusses the art of conducting a patient interview as well as a thorough physical examination; the importance of caring, yet staying detached enough to function effectively; how to use the awesome technology that is available in the twenty-first century without becoming overly dependent on it; and how to strike the proper balance between one's personal and professional life. A doctor should never be so obsessed with her job that she neglects to devote her time to other interests and passions.

The author has been an accomplished writer for years, and she draws the reader in effortlessly with her literate yet conversational prose style. Occasionally, she waxes philosophical: "Medical training is transformative. It will make you over completely--your emotions, your sense of proportion, your narrative abilities, and your habits of mind." Klass's refreshing honesty and no-nonsense approach to her subject make this a highly pleasurable and thought-provoking read about "a privileged profession"--one that gives the medical practitioner an "opportunity to figure in so many people's stories."

Perri Klass just can't write a bad book. I emphathize with her. As a fellow professional about her age, I too have paused "mid career" and suddenly realized that we are not the brash young kids any more, we are the ones teaching and guiding.

Perri tells it like it is--like a guided tour through the mind of a doctor.

I enjoyed her book very much and wish Orlando a very successful career!!!

My experience with getting this product in great shape and a timely fashion was just as the title implies: kind and fair business practice! Great service!

There is enough material in this book for a substantial magazine article, but it makes for an awfully ightweight book. The author, a physican trained in the 80s, reflects on the difference experiences her son will have as a medical student in the present decade. Her writing style is straightforward, and she has some interesig experiences and reflections to share about key experiences of treating patients at the most basic level. She is a pediatrician and her son wants to be a surgeon, so she can't tell him much about what his training will be like beyond the basics.

This book should have stayed letters to her son. It was bland and offered little real information. Lots of advice like you would give a son who is working on becoming a doctor, but nothing terribly useful. I thought it was a waste of time.