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Bedside Manners: One Doctor's Reflections on the Oddly Intimate Encounters Between Patient and Healer
Have you ever wondered what life is like on the other side of the stethoscope?
Combining the grace and precision of a poet with a down-to-earth, compassionate manner, physician and NPR commentator David Watts reveals what it’s really like to be a doctor today. From difficult diagnoses, irreverent colleagues, brave survivors, and examining room embarrassments, Watts uncovers the world of contemporary medicine and shares the emotional truths and practical realities at the heart of every doctor-patient relationship.
Watts’s warmhearted and understanding attitude toward his patients—and their foibles—is evident on every page of this surprising, poignant, and intimate look inside the life of a doctor who could very easily be your own.
Combining the grace and precision of a poet with a down-to-earth, compassionate manner, physician and NPR commentator David Watts reveals what it’s really like to be a doctor today. From difficult diagnoses, irreverent colleagues, brave survivors, and examining room embarrassments, Watts uncovers the world of contemporary medicine and shares the emotional truths and practical realities at the heart of every doctor-patient relationship.
Watts’s warmhearted and understanding attitude toward his patients—and their foibles—is evident on every page of this surprising, poignant, and intimate look inside the life of a doctor who could very easily be your own.
304 pages, Paperback
First published February 8, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
October 3, 2010
While I thought this was an interesting book, the author's near complete omission of quotation marks throughout made it at times very difficult to follow. He is, as the title suggests, reflecting upon encounters with his patients, but using what are phrased to be direct quotes from their conversations. Add a third person to the conversation and you are now hopelessly lost because you can never be quite sure who is saying what, and what is really a quote as opposed to the reflection part of the book.
Also, this doctor is a poet, and poetry is one of my least favorite things to read. Therefore, when his poetic musings work their way into this book, I lose interest. Especially weird to me is that he appears to be a GI doctor, and I don't usually put poetry and colonoscopies in the same thought. Psychiatry and poetry maybe, but not gastrointestinal medicine.
It was a relatively short book, broken into smallish anecdotes that lent itself well to reading before bed, though often I had to reread pages because I lost track of the conversations because of the quote issue.
Also, this doctor is a poet, and poetry is one of my least favorite things to read. Therefore, when his poetic musings work their way into this book, I lose interest. Especially weird to me is that he appears to be a GI doctor, and I don't usually put poetry and colonoscopies in the same thought. Psychiatry and poetry maybe, but not gastrointestinal medicine.
It was a relatively short book, broken into smallish anecdotes that lent itself well to reading before bed, though often I had to reread pages because I lost track of the conversations because of the quote issue.
May 26, 2011
Dr. Watts' vignettes create quite an engaging patchwork quilt. Alternately poignant and amusing, wacky and heart-breaking, each short story captures a vivid moment of his medical training or career and reveals his “other life” as a poet. From “White Rabbits” with the patient who tape-recorded his borborygmi – those strange bowel sounds that sometimes seem to have a life of their own – so Dr. Watts could assure him that they weren't abnormal, to “Piano Lesson” relating the time he and his son witnessed a young boy on a bicycle seriously injured in a hit-and-run, these scenes have serious staying power.
He shares what must be some of his most vulnerable moments. His first night in the emergency room as a medical student, he's tasked with stitching up a scalp laceration. Practically carried along by the nurse, he tentatively works through the steps, nervously attempting small talk with the patient and catches a glimpse of a different life where friends hit friends with bar stools. Later, in less than three pages, a deceptively simple appointment for a flu shot takes on earth-stopping significance when we learn that the patient's husband died of a cancer Dr. Watts didn't discover soon enough.
Dr. Watts' collection of true stories leaves the impression of a man with a deep appreciation for the occasionally absurdist humor he sees as well as the normal foibles of the human race. At the same time, he is profoundly moved by both the physical and spiritual pain he sees and the strength and endurance that withstands it. Bedside Manners communicates these paradoxes and contradictions with a powerful emotional punch.
For more book reviews, come visit my blog, Build Enough Bookshelves.
He shares what must be some of his most vulnerable moments. His first night in the emergency room as a medical student, he's tasked with stitching up a scalp laceration. Practically carried along by the nurse, he tentatively works through the steps, nervously attempting small talk with the patient and catches a glimpse of a different life where friends hit friends with bar stools. Later, in less than three pages, a deceptively simple appointment for a flu shot takes on earth-stopping significance when we learn that the patient's husband died of a cancer Dr. Watts didn't discover soon enough.
Dr. Watts' collection of true stories leaves the impression of a man with a deep appreciation for the occasionally absurdist humor he sees as well as the normal foibles of the human race. At the same time, he is profoundly moved by both the physical and spiritual pain he sees and the strength and endurance that withstands it. Bedside Manners communicates these paradoxes and contradictions with a powerful emotional punch.
For more book reviews, come visit my blog, Build Enough Bookshelves.
February 17, 2013
The author, an internist and poet, writes brief vignettes about a variety of patients – the resigned, the anxious, the pathologically neurotic, the demanding and blustering. With the longest at around ten pages and most of them no more than four, these are brief scenes, ruminations on what a patient’s words or actions may actually be saying about their inner feelings.
The last word in the subtitle – “healer” – is aptly chosen, as Dr. Watts attends to not only his patients’ colons and esophagi, but their fears and hopes and memories. Using as his precept “So you’re a doctor, but don’t go around acting like one,” he does a masterful job of checking his ego, putting himself in his patients’ shoes, allowing them their moments of fear or bravado. As the kind of doctor who sees himself as a healer, listener, counselor, and fount of compassion, he also has a few rather pointed and amusing things to say about insurance companies and red tape. As a poet, he is a talented storyteller with a gift for evoking a scene of high emotion in a few lines and ending it on the perfect, ambiguous, moving, or wryly humorous note. I did not like the way in which he eschewed all quotation marks; Watts may be a poet, but this is not poetry, and it was a distracting affectation.
The last word in the subtitle – “healer” – is aptly chosen, as Dr. Watts attends to not only his patients’ colons and esophagi, but their fears and hopes and memories. Using as his precept “So you’re a doctor, but don’t go around acting like one,” he does a masterful job of checking his ego, putting himself in his patients’ shoes, allowing them their moments of fear or bravado. As the kind of doctor who sees himself as a healer, listener, counselor, and fount of compassion, he also has a few rather pointed and amusing things to say about insurance companies and red tape. As a poet, he is a talented storyteller with a gift for evoking a scene of high emotion in a few lines and ending it on the perfect, ambiguous, moving, or wryly humorous note. I did not like the way in which he eschewed all quotation marks; Watts may be a poet, but this is not poetry, and it was a distracting affectation.
November 28, 2012
I've read one or two other books by Dr. Watts (all given to me by him personally, when I met him at a Baylor Alumni Reunion, incidentally), and this has definitely been my favorite so far. His writing is that of a poet, with spare phrases and sometimes cloudy meanings. But his stories were astonishing, thought-provoking, touching, and more. He made me think more than I already do about the gift of seeing patients, and the things my patients teach me, and tell me, and everything I gain from them.
I'd strongly recommend this book to anyone in the medical field, and I think it's worth a read for anyone interested in the human experience and human connections. After all, isn't that what life is all about?
Fun fact for BCM students: there is one story in the collection that is very clearly about being in BTEC as a medical student, and it's amusing to see how little things have changed.
I'd strongly recommend this book to anyone in the medical field, and I think it's worth a read for anyone interested in the human experience and human connections. After all, isn't that what life is all about?
Fun fact for BCM students: there is one story in the collection that is very clearly about being in BTEC as a medical student, and it's amusing to see how little things have changed.
March 26, 2008
This book is a series of short stories by a good-natured doctor, who I grew to cherish by the end of this book. He deals with absolutely ridiculous patients sometimes, but seems to make very respectable decisions. (This while the rest of us are pulling our hair out.) It's a very sweet book about the relationships between doctor and patient, and he does his best to share what he learned from these particular experiences.
March 2, 2012
I really like that Dr. Watts shows some frustration with the patients in some of his encounters, and looks within himself for resolutions,often finding that his view of the patient made some of the frustration. I love how compassionate, kind, and caring Dr. Watts is with his patients, and this book really shows that patients have just as much of an effect on doctors, as doctors have on the patients.
March 10, 2008
Glorious book, though you can tell he's a poet from his dreamy distraction. I was expecting for this to be another patronizing, feel bad book for doctors to be when it was actually funny, uplifting and very thoughtfully composed.
June 1, 2011
I enjoyed some of it. Wasn't quite what I expected. Some very interesting storie. Some that I wondered, "What was the point of that?"
March 18, 2012
Even though the stories are fascinating,
I find the writing style confusing,thus not
so easy to read
I find the writing style confusing,thus not
so easy to read
September 3, 2013
Kinda hard to read, at times, because the guy refused to use quotation marks
ALL through the book. Just continuous soliloquy.
Gets old after a while.
ALL through the book. Just continuous soliloquy.
Gets old after a while.
December 12, 2012
Although generally well written, this book is terribly inconsistent. The mini-stories, averaging 4-5 pages are just too choppy, making the text harder to read.
August 16, 2013
It was hard for me to get used to the author's writing style at first, but once I did, I found the stories to be interesting and meaningful.
September 24, 2009
Bedside Manners
Anyone picking up Bedside Manners, by David Watts, expecting a coherent portrait of a doctor’s life in modern America, is in for a surprise. Nor does the book attempt to make any grand statements about medical policy or practice. Unlike, say, Listening to Prozac, which meditated deeply on psychiatry and medication while describing doctor-patient interactions, Bedside Manners is a series of snapshots, brief bits of non-fiction portraying the “intimate encounters between patient and healer.” It is aggressively achronological, and we seldom see the same patient twice.
It is also resolutely focused on the doctor-patient relationship, and Watts’ own personal life appears only in passing. Unlike far too many recent non-fiction writers, Watts understands that his marriage, divorce, relationship with his mother, and so forth, are relevant and interesting only as they relate to each separate story.
Certain themes come through despite the format: the permeable line between mental and physical ailments, the deep-rooted nature of some patients’ personality disorders, the endless frustration of dealing with HMOs and other insurers, and the non-scientific elements embedded in the deceptively clinical practice of medicine.
Watts is a good writer, and his prose can impress and surprise. The longest section is almost not about medicine at all, but about the lengthy monologues of one of the most difficult patients Watts ever had, a prickly, lonely Jewish WW II veteran who is abusive and obscene towards Watts and his staff. Given the difficulty in writing freshly about such sacred and well-trod ground, the vet’s story of the liberation of a Nazi death camp is remarkably well told.
Stylistically, Watts often uses a Hemingwayesque technique of leaving out key elements of his short portraits. He prefers to let the reader see the meaning in each anecdote. There are wonderful moments awaiting any reader, such as the understated but painful guilt embedded in the story of the widow who continues to see Watts, even though she, and Watts himself, wonders if he missed early signs of the cancer that killed her husband. While other writers would have taken the opportunity to launch into a discussion of medical malpractice lawsuits, or defensive medicine, Watts lets the mystery lie, without judgment or further discussion. In the same way that Hemingway in his best short stories left out the inevitable ending that he had already painted in our minds, Watts often leaves the story of his patients when their deaths are certain, but still approaching. The horror of a paralyzed man disconnected from his breathing tube, unable to signal for help, and dying due to a preventable medical error, is all the more frightening because it is quietly and seamlessly embedded into one short passage.
There are even moments that approach magical realism, things so unbelievable that had Watts not established such credibility with his readers, one might have thought he was experimenting with the style of Kundera or Murakami. Particularly evocative of this is the account of the patient who becomes romantically obsessed with Watts, despite his rejections of her letters and gifts, and his decision to stop treating her. She goes on to schedule their wedding, and invite her entire family. As with many of the patients we see, her problem is psychological, and Watts is often at his best in portraying how hypochondria, dementia, phobias, anexoria, and drug addiction confound the job of the modern doctor.
There are serious problems embedded in Watts’ stylistic choices. First, and most annoyingly, he opts to avoid all quotation marks. In a book with less dialogue, this would be a defensible choice, but the reader often struggles to figure out what is being said, and what is being thought, and by whom. This technique has become vogue again, used by memoirists like Frank McCourt in Angela’s Ashes (or fake memoirists like James Frey in A Million Little Pieces), but it is most often used successfully when a book is relentlessly focused on one voice and one approach to setting scenes. The lack of quotations by Watts is particularly aggravating when combined with a careless use of pronouns, in which “he” can refer to two different people in the same paragraph.
Second, by putting the stories together in no obvious order, and with very few if any connecting threads, each one must stand up on its own as worthy of our time and attention. To Watts’ great credit most do. Watts’ accounts of moments of drama in his medical life, such as when he tells a patient that his cancer is terminal, answer questions most of us have had about what life feels like from the other side of the stethoscope. But a few too many of them fall flat, tiny vignettes that fail to convey much meaning at all, such as a fake cowboy’s false near death experience, which is a lot less interesting than it sounds.
Third, one regrets occasionally that Watts’ style seems to prevent him from drawing any policy conclusions about modern medical life. The long phone calls to insurers to simply get his patients’ prescriptions approved could well be accompanied by a single sentence about the sheer idiocy of allowing the profit motive to rule this area of health policy. And the pithy and biting portrait of the uselessness and overreaching nature of his hospital’s research review board would not be spoiled by pointing out that this is a nearly universal problem in medical and social science research.
Still, the strength of this book is in the many vignettes that captivate and linger, making subtle and sometimes stunning points. The haunting, tragic story of the brilliant beautiful medical student whose shifting symptoms defy diagnosis is perhaps the book’s finest moment. Watts’ and the rest of the hospital team are utterly unable to determine the cause of her internal bleeding and infection, until Watts figures out that she is carefully cutting herself and drinking her own blood, and injecting herself with fecal matter.
One leaves this book believing that the best doctors are ones who share Watts’ obvious commitment to treating the patient, and not the disease, if only because an illness and its symptoms are often intertwined with the patient’s mind and past in ways that can confound pure scientific understanding.
Anyone picking up Bedside Manners, by David Watts, expecting a coherent portrait of a doctor’s life in modern America, is in for a surprise. Nor does the book attempt to make any grand statements about medical policy or practice. Unlike, say, Listening to Prozac, which meditated deeply on psychiatry and medication while describing doctor-patient interactions, Bedside Manners is a series of snapshots, brief bits of non-fiction portraying the “intimate encounters between patient and healer.” It is aggressively achronological, and we seldom see the same patient twice.
It is also resolutely focused on the doctor-patient relationship, and Watts’ own personal life appears only in passing. Unlike far too many recent non-fiction writers, Watts understands that his marriage, divorce, relationship with his mother, and so forth, are relevant and interesting only as they relate to each separate story.
Certain themes come through despite the format: the permeable line between mental and physical ailments, the deep-rooted nature of some patients’ personality disorders, the endless frustration of dealing with HMOs and other insurers, and the non-scientific elements embedded in the deceptively clinical practice of medicine.
Watts is a good writer, and his prose can impress and surprise. The longest section is almost not about medicine at all, but about the lengthy monologues of one of the most difficult patients Watts ever had, a prickly, lonely Jewish WW II veteran who is abusive and obscene towards Watts and his staff. Given the difficulty in writing freshly about such sacred and well-trod ground, the vet’s story of the liberation of a Nazi death camp is remarkably well told.
Stylistically, Watts often uses a Hemingwayesque technique of leaving out key elements of his short portraits. He prefers to let the reader see the meaning in each anecdote. There are wonderful moments awaiting any reader, such as the understated but painful guilt embedded in the story of the widow who continues to see Watts, even though she, and Watts himself, wonders if he missed early signs of the cancer that killed her husband. While other writers would have taken the opportunity to launch into a discussion of medical malpractice lawsuits, or defensive medicine, Watts lets the mystery lie, without judgment or further discussion. In the same way that Hemingway in his best short stories left out the inevitable ending that he had already painted in our minds, Watts often leaves the story of his patients when their deaths are certain, but still approaching. The horror of a paralyzed man disconnected from his breathing tube, unable to signal for help, and dying due to a preventable medical error, is all the more frightening because it is quietly and seamlessly embedded into one short passage.
There are even moments that approach magical realism, things so unbelievable that had Watts not established such credibility with his readers, one might have thought he was experimenting with the style of Kundera or Murakami. Particularly evocative of this is the account of the patient who becomes romantically obsessed with Watts, despite his rejections of her letters and gifts, and his decision to stop treating her. She goes on to schedule their wedding, and invite her entire family. As with many of the patients we see, her problem is psychological, and Watts is often at his best in portraying how hypochondria, dementia, phobias, anexoria, and drug addiction confound the job of the modern doctor.
There are serious problems embedded in Watts’ stylistic choices. First, and most annoyingly, he opts to avoid all quotation marks. In a book with less dialogue, this would be a defensible choice, but the reader often struggles to figure out what is being said, and what is being thought, and by whom. This technique has become vogue again, used by memoirists like Frank McCourt in Angela’s Ashes (or fake memoirists like James Frey in A Million Little Pieces), but it is most often used successfully when a book is relentlessly focused on one voice and one approach to setting scenes. The lack of quotations by Watts is particularly aggravating when combined with a careless use of pronouns, in which “he” can refer to two different people in the same paragraph.
Second, by putting the stories together in no obvious order, and with very few if any connecting threads, each one must stand up on its own as worthy of our time and attention. To Watts’ great credit most do. Watts’ accounts of moments of drama in his medical life, such as when he tells a patient that his cancer is terminal, answer questions most of us have had about what life feels like from the other side of the stethoscope. But a few too many of them fall flat, tiny vignettes that fail to convey much meaning at all, such as a fake cowboy’s false near death experience, which is a lot less interesting than it sounds.
Third, one regrets occasionally that Watts’ style seems to prevent him from drawing any policy conclusions about modern medical life. The long phone calls to insurers to simply get his patients’ prescriptions approved could well be accompanied by a single sentence about the sheer idiocy of allowing the profit motive to rule this area of health policy. And the pithy and biting portrait of the uselessness and overreaching nature of his hospital’s research review board would not be spoiled by pointing out that this is a nearly universal problem in medical and social science research.
Still, the strength of this book is in the many vignettes that captivate and linger, making subtle and sometimes stunning points. The haunting, tragic story of the brilliant beautiful medical student whose shifting symptoms defy diagnosis is perhaps the book’s finest moment. Watts’ and the rest of the hospital team are utterly unable to determine the cause of her internal bleeding and infection, until Watts figures out that she is carefully cutting herself and drinking her own blood, and injecting herself with fecal matter.
One leaves this book believing that the best doctors are ones who share Watts’ obvious commitment to treating the patient, and not the disease, if only because an illness and its symptoms are often intertwined with the patient’s mind and past in ways that can confound pure scientific understanding.
July 24, 2017
Interesting to read what a doctor experiences when dealing with marginal or near death patients. Reminds me of the saying, "We are spiritual beings having a human experience." Some of the most intimate moments are described at poetry...spiritual.
March 8, 2019
Not what I was initially expecting - I thought there would be more of an overall flow to it. Instead each short story stands on its own. Some of the stories hooked me more than others. Overall, not sad that I read it.
May 18, 2022
4.5* probably ??
a lot better than i thought it would be :D i like how it shows the slowness of being a doctor sometimes because usually doctor-y books are very fast-paced!
some chapters were better than others obvi but it was veryyyy interesting
a lot better than i thought it would be :D i like how it shows the slowness of being a doctor sometimes because usually doctor-y books are very fast-paced!
some chapters were better than others obvi but it was veryyyy interesting
August 14, 2019
This was an interesting perspective from a doctor and how he dealt with odd, sometimes difficult patients. As someone interested in the medical field, I enjoyed the insight.
January 6, 2013
I liked the format of this book: short vignettes on various topics relating to medicine, specifically interesting patients Watts, both a doctor and a poet, has had.
Watts's poem on page 100:
My son brings me a stone
and asks which star
it fell from. He is serious
so I must be careful, even though
I know he will place it among those things
that will leave him someday
and he will go on gathering,
for this is one of those moments
that turns suddenly towards you, opening
as it turns, as if we paused
on the edge of a heartbeat and then pressed
forward, conscious
of the fear that runs beside us
and how lovely it is to be with each other
in the long resilient mornings.
Talking about feeling like you always have to take action, both as a human being but especially as a doctor from p. 151
"Ignorance dominates. Wisdom is slow in coming. I'd been sucked into the vortex of apprehension and was paralyzed. It would have been simple to break out of it if I'd just confessed that I didn't know what I was doing."
Talking about being a patient himself and what is satisfying about being checked by a doctor as well as being a doctor yourself, the feeling of reassurance when getting/receiving an answer/diagnosis.
from p. 228:
"And I feel the turn, the departure from procrastination that certain symptoms produce, like that for the dentist, which now shifts like a keel ballast, whipping the boat around. Yes, indeed. I am almost willing to beg to be seen.
I enjoy the practice of medicine, the competent certainty of diagnosis and decision, how it all works together to bring assurance, healing. I know a little bit about that."
Watts's poem on page 100:
My son brings me a stone
and asks which star
it fell from. He is serious
so I must be careful, even though
I know he will place it among those things
that will leave him someday
and he will go on gathering,
for this is one of those moments
that turns suddenly towards you, opening
as it turns, as if we paused
on the edge of a heartbeat and then pressed
forward, conscious
of the fear that runs beside us
and how lovely it is to be with each other
in the long resilient mornings.
Talking about feeling like you always have to take action, both as a human being but especially as a doctor from p. 151
"Ignorance dominates. Wisdom is slow in coming. I'd been sucked into the vortex of apprehension and was paralyzed. It would have been simple to break out of it if I'd just confessed that I didn't know what I was doing."
Talking about being a patient himself and what is satisfying about being checked by a doctor as well as being a doctor yourself, the feeling of reassurance when getting/receiving an answer/diagnosis.
from p. 228:
"And I feel the turn, the departure from procrastination that certain symptoms produce, like that for the dentist, which now shifts like a keel ballast, whipping the boat around. Yes, indeed. I am almost willing to beg to be seen.
I enjoy the practice of medicine, the competent certainty of diagnosis and decision, how it all works together to bring assurance, healing. I know a little bit about that."
April 10, 2021
I couldn’t figure out what the author enjoys about being a doctor, trying to guess was about the only thing that kept me reading. Was it just me or did he seem to think most of his women patients were hypochondriacs, had “personality flaws,” or were just “crazy”? (Chapter titled, “When Crazy Gets Sick” was especially insensitive.)
I was deeply uncomfortable with his essay about the patient he described as a “drop-dead beauty” who repeatedly allowed her boyfriend to reinfect her with an STD; how he was “stunned by the knowledge... that a beautiful woman, knowing the consequences, would give herself so completely.” Yes, give herself. He goes on to write that her willingness, her vulnerability made her beauty all the more striking and “the truth was that he could fall for her in a moment.” Gross.
Also, there is the story where, after getting dressed down by another doctor, he believes that the nurse offers her wordless sympathies by reaching across him to administer pain medication and letting her breasts touch his upper arm. Wha-? He also wrote that he felt no need to withdraw or “ease her access” to the medication. Again, just so gross.
Given all the power struggles the author describes with patients, when he says, “I don’t want to appear insensitive,” I take it to mean he realizes he is unskilled at fabricating the appearance of being sensitive. I’d like to think the title of this book, Bedside Manners, is the mantra he repeats to remind himself to work on improving his deficiencies in this area. If so, for his patients’ sake, I’m glad that he acknowledges the value in trying to improve it.
I was deeply uncomfortable with his essay about the patient he described as a “drop-dead beauty” who repeatedly allowed her boyfriend to reinfect her with an STD; how he was “stunned by the knowledge... that a beautiful woman, knowing the consequences, would give herself so completely.” Yes, give herself. He goes on to write that her willingness, her vulnerability made her beauty all the more striking and “the truth was that he could fall for her in a moment.” Gross.
Also, there is the story where, after getting dressed down by another doctor, he believes that the nurse offers her wordless sympathies by reaching across him to administer pain medication and letting her breasts touch his upper arm. Wha-? He also wrote that he felt no need to withdraw or “ease her access” to the medication. Again, just so gross.
Given all the power struggles the author describes with patients, when he says, “I don’t want to appear insensitive,” I take it to mean he realizes he is unskilled at fabricating the appearance of being sensitive. I’d like to think the title of this book, Bedside Manners, is the mantra he repeats to remind himself to work on improving his deficiencies in this area. If so, for his patients’ sake, I’m glad that he acknowledges the value in trying to improve it.
January 12, 2011
Interesting glimpses of the patient/doctor interaction. Good but not awesome.
_____________
From Publishers Weekly
"Sickness brings out the worst in people.... Many of my patients exhibit neurotic behavior.... But generally, their basic attitude is that of prayer—an almost desperate pleading for mercy at the hands of illness." These words by Watts, a poet and commentator on NPR as well as a practicing physician, exemplify his nuanced and thoughtful attitude toward his patients. Both empathetic and practical, Watts relates encounters that have informed his ability to understand, diagnose and treat sickness. In "The Morbius Monster," a youngish man suffering from severe indigestion asks to be heavily sedated during an endoscopy, but even while unconscious resists the procedure. Through intuition and sensitive questioning, Watts elicits an account of early child abuse, and with the patient's cooperation, talks him through a second test with local anesthetic. In another case, Watts describes the day when, beset by the demands of his schedule, he reluctantly went to a convalescent home to visit Codger, an elderly Jewish man who was a garrulous curmudgeon. After listening to Codger's tale of how he came upon the death camps as an American soldier in WWII, Watts concludes that by making the time to see and listen to this patient, he made a human connection. All of the incidents related here, whether sad, frustrating or inconclusive, are unfailingly compelling.
_____________
From Publishers Weekly
"Sickness brings out the worst in people.... Many of my patients exhibit neurotic behavior.... But generally, their basic attitude is that of prayer—an almost desperate pleading for mercy at the hands of illness." These words by Watts, a poet and commentator on NPR as well as a practicing physician, exemplify his nuanced and thoughtful attitude toward his patients. Both empathetic and practical, Watts relates encounters that have informed his ability to understand, diagnose and treat sickness. In "The Morbius Monster," a youngish man suffering from severe indigestion asks to be heavily sedated during an endoscopy, but even while unconscious resists the procedure. Through intuition and sensitive questioning, Watts elicits an account of early child abuse, and with the patient's cooperation, talks him through a second test with local anesthetic. In another case, Watts describes the day when, beset by the demands of his schedule, he reluctantly went to a convalescent home to visit Codger, an elderly Jewish man who was a garrulous curmudgeon. After listening to Codger's tale of how he came upon the death camps as an American soldier in WWII, Watts concludes that by making the time to see and listen to this patient, he made a human connection. All of the incidents related here, whether sad, frustrating or inconclusive, are unfailingly compelling.
did-not-finish
February 28, 2009I got this book hoping it would be like Better, or Complications, or How Doctors Think--a thoughtful book about the nature of the medical profession. Instead, it's a series of vignettes from this guy's experience of medicine. Since they're all about interacting with patients, you could say that "oddly intimate encounters" is a running theme. But this is a book by a man who wanted to write a book and figured that, as a doctor, that's what he could get published. Really, he wanted to be a poet. He wanted to be a writer. (And who can blame him?) All these things are stated quite clearly in the preface.
So he has no insights on how medicine works in the world today, how doctors or the medical profession in general are marginalized or idealized or just doing their best. He doesn't even really have any insights on interacting with patients. But he wrote up a bunch of vignettes and someone published them, and good for him.
So he has no insights on how medicine works in the world today, how doctors or the medical profession in general are marginalized or idealized or just doing their best. He doesn't even really have any insights on interacting with patients. But he wrote up a bunch of vignettes and someone published them, and good for him.
November 19, 2022
📚📚 𝔹𝕠𝕠𝕜 ℝ𝕖𝕧𝕚𝕖𝕨 𝔻𝕒𝕪! 📚📚
𝓑𝓮𝓭𝓼𝓲𝓭𝓮 𝓜𝓪𝓷𝓷𝓮𝓻𝓼
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“𝙾𝚔𝚊𝚢, 𝚜𝚘 𝚢𝚘𝚞’𝚛𝚎 𝚊 𝚍𝚘𝚌𝚝𝚘𝚛…𝙹𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚍𝚘𝚗’𝚝 𝚐𝚘 𝚊𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍 𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚘𝚗𝚎.”
This book is a compilation of reflections, anecdotes, and musings throughout Dr. Watt’s medical experience as a medical student, resident, and practicing physician. The stories are real, honest looks into the American medical system and life of a doctor.
I found this book to be a decent read. I found many of the stories relatable and true to my experiences. Not all the stories are happy or paint the picture of being a doctor in great light, but they’re truthful. I found Dr. Watt’s writing is an easy read and each story is interesting in its own way. Overall, I wasn’t blown away by anything said in this book, but I still appreciated it.
For full review, check out my blog post through the link in my bio!
𝓑𝓮𝓭𝓼𝓲𝓭𝓮 𝓜𝓪𝓷𝓷𝓮𝓻𝓼
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
“𝙾𝚔𝚊𝚢, 𝚜𝚘 𝚢𝚘𝚞’𝚛𝚎 𝚊 𝚍𝚘𝚌𝚝𝚘𝚛…𝙹𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚍𝚘𝚗’𝚝 𝚐𝚘 𝚊𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍 𝚊𝚌𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚕𝚒𝚔𝚎 𝚘𝚗𝚎.”
This book is a compilation of reflections, anecdotes, and musings throughout Dr. Watt’s medical experience as a medical student, resident, and practicing physician. The stories are real, honest looks into the American medical system and life of a doctor.
I found this book to be a decent read. I found many of the stories relatable and true to my experiences. Not all the stories are happy or paint the picture of being a doctor in great light, but they’re truthful. I found Dr. Watt’s writing is an easy read and each story is interesting in its own way. Overall, I wasn’t blown away by anything said in this book, but I still appreciated it.
For full review, check out my blog post through the link in my bio!
November 17, 2008
ever since i graduated from coloring in diagrams of the skull and memorizing lists of bones (maxible/mandible was my favorite as a kid) to books on medicine (oliver sacks) i've been looking for a good scoop on the medical profession.
to watt's credit, his compassion for his patients is obvious and he seems to have Dr. House-like moments of procedural inventiveness. his prose, however, misses its target entirely - since discussions of medical abnormalities to the layperson require more detail than literary description to bring home a point.
to watt's credit, his compassion for his patients is obvious and he seems to have Dr. House-like moments of procedural inventiveness. his prose, however, misses its target entirely - since discussions of medical abnormalities to the layperson require more detail than literary description to bring home a point.
May 20, 2016
This book started out ok but overall the stories are too short to feel invested in the patients like Watts was. Some are lengthier but end up predictable which doesn't make for an enjoyable read. I started reading this and got about 50 pages in, then awhile later picked it up again to only get another 50 pages in. Overall I decided to stop reading because I was reading just to finish it, not because it drew me in or was a good read. This is a good nighttime/bed time read because most stories are short, but to sit down and devour it, this wasn't the book for that.
May 30, 2010
I found this book unreadable - rather like trying to discern some meaning from one of those splatter paintings in a modern art museum. The vignettes were chaotic - both internally and in relation to one another. It was impossible to discern any chronology or other unifying theme that lent some sense or structure to the selection of stories. The vignettes were to brief and the writing to irregular to be enjoyable or illuminating as independent, unrelated stories. Give this one a miss.
September 17, 2012
A wonderful look at the world of medicine from a doctor's perspective. Dr. Watt's is also a poet so the writing is very beautiful and descriptive. The book is a collection of short stories- some happy, some funny, and some that made me cry. I would recommend this to anyone working in health care.
January 10, 2013
The premise is terrific, and I thought it would be riveting, but I think Watts tries too hard at keeping his "poet" persona. It was very frustrating as each chapter began with a whiff of "this one might be a good story," but each ended in a wishy-washy huh? Very disappointing.
May 26, 2014
This book was pretty meh. I did not enjoy the format of "conversations without quotes so you have to guess who is speaking half the time." I also did not enjoy Watts' attempts to be poetic. For the most part this book was just "OK."
April 12, 2009
The more I read, the more I feel like I'm trying to join some kind of cult.
August 27, 2007
Loved it! I've always been curious about how doctors view their patients and considering that Dr. Watts is a poet, too, it made his sentiments even more insightful.
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