The Soul of Medicine: A Physician's Exploration of Death and the Question of Being Human

Unlike many individuals who enter medicine it was not something I contemplated from the beginning. I wanted to be a scientist...until I became disillusioned with that enterprise. Currently Im a physician executive recently retired. Following medical school I trained in Internal Medicine and Emergency Medicine. Its the latter that I practiced clinically.Through an exploration of great thinkers and philosophers coupled with my own interactions with patients and colleagues Ive come to understand that medicine is a social moral philosophical and existential enterprise of which science is only one aspect.I respect science but dont worship it. Science is about facts that can be tested; philosophy and the humanities are about ideas that can be imagined and stories that can be told. Through the presentation of philosophical and normative issues elucidated through stories my goal in writing this book is to inspire tomorrows physicians medical ethicists and other healers and thinkers to reject the roles weve been assigned become more authentic in our everyday lives and transcend the inadequacy of science through imagination and improvisation.This is how the Soul of Medicine will be restored.