Beyond the Stethoscope

Book excerpt: A profound insight into the state of our health care system, the wellbeing of patients and that of their doctors.Our health care system is struggling. We live in an era of factory style medicine; spiralling costs; complex and chronic conditions; and doctors at the heart of it under pressure as never before. Witnessing worrying burnout in her doctor husband, Lucy Mayes went on a quest to find out what is really going on behind the scenes in medicine. Lucy asked doctors on the front lines how they make meaning in their work, what quality medicine looks like to them, and what their hopes are for the future of medicine. What emerged were consistent messages about elements of practice that the culture and systems of medicine still struggle to understand and support: the power of humanism; compassion; time; listening; the therapeutic relationship; and mind-body plus other whole-person understandings of health and healing. Beyond the Stethoscope will leave readers shocked, moved and inspired by the human story and wisdom of those who sit before them in that most intimate and ancient of humanist exchanges: that of the doctor and patient.