The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine

Here is a thoroughly updated edition of a classic in palliative medicine. Two new chapters have been added to the 1991 edition, along with a new preface summarizing where progress has been made and where it has not in the area of pain management. This book addresses the timely issue of doctor-patient relationships arguing that the patient, not the disease, should be the central focus of medicine. Included are a number of compelling patient narratives. Praise for the first edition "Well written. . .should be read by everyone in medical practice or Considering a career in medicine."--JAMA. "Memorable passages, important ideas, and critical analysis. This is a book that clinicians and educators should read."--New England Journal of Medicine.

Eric J Cassell is Clinical Professor of Public Health at Weill Medical College of Cornell University and an attending physician at The New York-Presbyterian Hospital. He is a Fellow and a member of the Board of Directors of the Hastings Center, as well as a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and a Master of the American College of Physicians. His recent books include Changing Values in Medicine, Talking with Patients, and Doctoring.

1: Ideas in Conflict: The Rise and Fall of New Views of Disease
2: The Changing Concept of the Ideal Physician
3: The Nature of Suffering
4: Suffering in Chronic Illness
5: The Mysterious Relationship Between Doctor and Patient
6: How to Understand Diseases
7: The Pursuit of Disease or the Care of the Sick?
8: Treating the Disease, the Body, or the Patient
9: The Doctor and the Patient
10: Who is This Person?
11: The Measure of the Person
12: The Clinician's Experience: Power Versus Magic in Medicine
13: Mind and Body
14: The Illness Called Dying
15: Pain and Suffering
Epilogue: The Care of the Suffering Patient