Dr. Jerome Groopman sketches brief but eloquent portraits of eight patients in this rumination on illness, spirituality, modern science, living and dying. As a leading researcher in the fields of cancer and AIDS, he is certainly well-acquainted with death, and he presents the book as an attempt to "capture and illuminate [the] complexity" of issues of illness and mortality, as well as the "biological and emotional circumstances surrounding death." However, this book is definitively about life and living. He reveals his own insights-- as well as those of his patients and their loved ones-- gained in the face of struggles against life-threatening illness, win or lose.

Although I found it hard to completely believe the good doctor¹s self-portrayal this side of sainthood, that niggling doubt in no way taints what I gained from his patients' stories. And if he is, indeed, all that he claims to be--well, then, this book should be required reading of all med students and I want him to be MY doctor.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/014026972X/planetcancer-20