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[justacat]

I very seldom talk about this kind of thing in my LJ ... but I'm going to make an exception here.  Yesterday's Wall Street Journal had a list of the top five books on turning points in modern medicine, and a book by my father-in-law, about an important and at that time pretty ground-breaking aspect of medical ethics:  the relationship between

Comments

[beledibabe]

Please give Dr. Katz my sincere thanks!

[zebra363]

He sounds like a wonderful person. I'm forwarding a link to that article to my sister, who's a doctor/psychiatrist - will be interested to hear if she's read it.

[justacat]

I will too! He is actually a psychiatrist/psychoanalyst (can't remember if the article said that), and he was a law professor for 40 years, though never a lawyer ...

(Also, I meant to comment but was feeling sick and then forgot, but I loved the alpaca story!)

[trislindsay]

I remember when this book came out and all the wonderful ripples that went through the medical community. Some changes HAVE been made, though it's sometimes hard to find the doctors who have made them. One of the reasons my doctor IS my doctor is because he has a well-thumbed copy of Jay Katz's book on his office shelves.

My best wishes for your father-in-law, who is a great man, writer and person. All of his work in medical ethics is important, today more than ever.

[justacat]

I really got a thrill to read that you actually know of the book, and knew of it when it came out ... It's funny how ingrained the paternalistic attitudes are, and how unaware of them you can be, even if you think you are "enlightened" (generic "you"). I still have a really, really, *really* hard time standing up to doctors even in the mildest way (like, I'm dreading going back to the neurologist and saying, I know you told me it would be difficult to do this trigger point thing lying down, but I think we should try, because otherwise I'm going to pass out again, and I really don't want to do that), and it shouldn't be that way.

I think I need a doctor with Jay's book!

But seriously, it really made me smile to read your comments - he *is* a great man, in many ways, and the wonderful thing is that I know you would think that even *more* if you met him.

[treewishes]

This is really, really impressive, though not too surprising, given what I've heard about the man from you and Mr. JaC. But wow -- I think I need to go read this, now.