Inside/Outside: A Physician's Journey with Breast Cancer

by Janet R. Gilsdorf

To doctors, cancer means cells growing out of control; to patients, cancer means a life spinning out of control. Janet R. Gilsdorf, who writes with quiet but devastating honesty about her experience with breast cancer, offers an eye-opening glimpse, through her unique dual perspective as physician and patient, of both sides of the medical divide.

The medical system delivers cures, answers, and relief from pain to those who seek its help, but it can also offer misinformation, shattered expectations, horrible options, and inhumane consideration of the people it is supposed to serve. As Gilsdorf takes us on a journey across the terrifying landscape of cancer, she discovers that there are oases of unfathomable beauty to be found.

Inside/Outside is compelling, sometimes scary, reading as it puts us inside Gilsdorf’s skin. It ponders a vast array of profound choices most of us will be confronted with in our thinking versus feeling, knowing versus not knowing, hanging on versus letting go, loving versus hating, and the immeasurable territories of life between the poles. Even as it touches on these universal human themes, ultimately Inside/Outside is a story of one person’s courage, hope, and survival in the face of terrifying odds.


Janet R. Gilsdorf, M.D., is Professor of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases, Division of Infectious Diseases, Medical School, and Professor of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, at the University of Michigan. She is also Director of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, Mott Children's Hospital; Director of the Cell and Molecular Biology in Pediatrics Training Program; and Director of the Haemophilus influenzae Research Laboratory.

256 pages, Hardcover

First published September 11, 2006

Reviews

[Nour · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a very interesting read for a female physician. It's a non-ficitional rendition of a female physician's experience as a patient. It was interesting to see things from both sides. I also reviewed this book on my blog:

www.dosteovsky.blogspot.com

[Margaret · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very helpful book for this physician with recently diagnosed breast cancer. She aptly highlights the difficultly that a physician can have being a patient! Also the wonderful new empathy for patients that develops when we have to experience being on the exam table.