The Search for Meaning in Disease #1001772

“Yoel took a deep breath, smiling with a mix of embarrassment and relief. In the days that followed, the pain along his rib cage subsided. It was then that he felt the need to share the whole story with his wife, Bruria.”
Most of us take our health for granted, until illness enters our lives.
Modern medicine has achieved extraordinary success. Diseases once considered untreatable can now often be cured or effectively managed, diagnostic tools are more precise than ever, and preventive care helps many people live longer and healthier lives. Yet alongside these remarkable advances, something essential in the relationship between doctor and patient has eroded.
The true medical stories in this book, carefully disguised to protect privacy, reveal another dimension of healing. They show how a physician, with attentiveness and insight, can help patients explore the emotional meaning that may accompany physical illness. Again and again, this search becomes a deeply human journey that enriches not only the patient, but also family members and caregivers.
Wise, compassionate, and deeply moving, these stories remind us that body, mind, and spirit cannot truly be separated, and that reconnecting them is one of the most human forms of healing.
Amos M. Yinnon is a graduate of the Hebrew University Medical School, a specialist in internal medicine and infectious diseases, and Professor of Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine. Over more than three decades at Shaare Zedek Medical Center, he directed both the Infectious Diseases Unit and later the Division of Internal Medicine. He regards Shaare Zedek as a unique hospital, distinguished not only by medical excellence but also by exceptional humanity and compassion. He dedicates this book to the hospital and its super staff.