Talking With Doctors, Expanded 2nd Edition [Paperback]

As his story unfolds, the reader is comforted in knowing that he must have made it through, because he lived to write about it. But the book is no less riveting.& He writes of the difficulty that even a confident, educated man can have in talking with doctors. He confronted egos, condescension, excuses  even lies. He ran into odd forms of compassion, such as the physician who instructed his receptionist to return Newmans $10 co-payment, as though the gesture would help compensate a man who just learned he might die soon. He also found doctors who asked about his family, who walked him to the cab stand when he appeared too shaky to move, who followed through with phone calls to get test results more quickly. From all of them, no matter how much he may have wished for a miracle, he never expected one. He wanted only a full version of truth that he could understand.  Susan Brink, Los Angeles Times

Reading Newmans cautionary story will be preventive medicine for the public and should be included in the continuing education of every physician.  David Gordon, M.D., Professor of Radiology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine

This book should be required reading for all medical students, and could well form the basis for a course entitled Being and Finding the Best Doctor.  William Silen, M.D., Johnson & Johnson Professor of Surgery, Emeritus, Harvard Medical School

Without any warning, in September, 1999 David Newman was told he had a rare and life-threatening tumor in the base of his skull. At the time, he had three young children and was a psychotherapist in New York with patients of his own. In the compressed space of five weeks, he consulted with leading physicians and surgeons at four major ml“,