Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal
Rachel Naomi Remen

We are all overloaded with work, information, and books, and to be told that there is yet one more book we should read can feel vaguely nauseating. But that overload and the costs it exacts are the subject of Kitchen Table Wisdom, as are the ways in which we can remedy these costs.

We enter medicine with high ideals, with hopes for providing healing and comfort for others, establishing a good and satisfying life for ourselves, and making discoveries and breakthroughs to benefit future generations. Yet somewhere along the way these ideals can become submerged under an avalanche of date and demands, ludicrously long work hours and chronic fatigue, the worship of technology and objectivity, and the unacknowledged grief of facing so much suffering and death. Small wonder then, as Rachel Remen makes clear, that all too often our hearts close to protect ourselves from the overwhelming pain we witness, compassion withers around the 24th hour without sleep, we armor ourselves against the welter of powerful emotions in ourselves and others, and become, in large part, highly efficient technicians. In short, we suffer from what the French call deformation professional.

We and our patients pay a terrible price for this deformation. Is it inevitable? "No!" says Remen, and she proceeds to demonstrate, through story after story, ways in which we can reclaim the ideals, caring, compassion, and empathy that helped bring us into medicine.

Rachel Remen has made this transition herself and, through the almost 100 personal accounts in her book, shows how that transition occurred and how healing and helpful it was for her and her patients. Story after story tells of the damage done to both physician and patient by the physician's suppression of emotions and warmth. And story after story tells of how patients yearn for their physicians to express or at least be open to these feelings. "My doctors' warmth and care are as important as any treatment they give" is the recurrent theme.

This is a book that can begin to help and heal those who read it. Few physicians will fail to recognize themselves in its portraits. Few will fail to sigh over the suppression of their emotions and humanity. And many will be inspired to risk being more open, more overtly caring and compassionate, and more willing to reclaim their full humanity for the sake of their patients, their families, and themselves. - Roger Walsh, MB, Ph.D.