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14 days and 15:28:17
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The Mirror Box: A Doctor's Story
Not yet published
Expected 23 Mar 27Win a free print copy of this book!
14 days and 15:28:17
15 copies available
U.S. only
A uniquely honest insider’s view of medicine by a doctor-turned-patient faced with her own medical mystery.
A uniquely honest insider’s view of medicine by a doctor-turned-patient faced with her own medical mystery.
Days before she planned to retire after decades as a doctor, Suzanne Koven broke her wrist. In the aftermath, she developed a strange Koven’s right hand, which hadn’t been injured, became excruciatingly painful and was paralyzed. Even more disturbing, she lost any sense that her hand belonged to her. Patients with chronic pain and mind-body syndromes―mostly women―are often dismissed as anxious or hysterical. Koven had believed, irrationally, that as a doctor she was invulnerable to such conditions. But like any other patient, she had to make sense of her new and altered self. Her search took her from the writings of Audre Lorde to scientific journals, an acupuncturist’s table, and the case reports of a Civil War doctor. Weaving narrative, literature, neuroscience, and medical history, Koven explores how we can heal, even when medicine is unable to cure. At a time when trust in doctors is cratering and physician burnout is at an all-time high, The Mirror Box offers a hopeful meditation on science, healing, and our common humanity.
20 illustrations 20 illustrations
A uniquely honest insider’s view of medicine by a doctor-turned-patient faced with her own medical mystery.
Days before she planned to retire after decades as a doctor, Suzanne Koven broke her wrist. In the aftermath, she developed a strange Koven’s right hand, which hadn’t been injured, became excruciatingly painful and was paralyzed. Even more disturbing, she lost any sense that her hand belonged to her. Patients with chronic pain and mind-body syndromes―mostly women―are often dismissed as anxious or hysterical. Koven had believed, irrationally, that as a doctor she was invulnerable to such conditions. But like any other patient, she had to make sense of her new and altered self. Her search took her from the writings of Audre Lorde to scientific journals, an acupuncturist’s table, and the case reports of a Civil War doctor. Weaving narrative, literature, neuroscience, and medical history, Koven explores how we can heal, even when medicine is unable to cure. At a time when trust in doctors is cratering and physician burnout is at an all-time high, The Mirror Box offers a hopeful meditation on science, healing, and our common humanity.
20 illustrations 20 illustrations
- GenresHealth
224 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication March 23, 2027
About the author
Suzanne Koven
5 books42 followersSuzanne Koven is a primary care doctor and writer in residence at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. She is also on the faculty at Harvard Medical School. Her writing has appeared in The Boston Globe, The New England Journal of Medicine, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Psychology Today, and many other publications. Her memoir, Letter to a Young Female Physician: Notes from a Medical Life, will be published by W.W. Norton & Co. on May 4, 2021.
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