cover image Patient's Ordeal

Patient's Ordeal

William F. May. Indiana University Press, $26.95 (218pp) ISBN 978-0-253-33717-7

The major focus of this wide-ranging, compassionate and insightful discourse concerns the psychological trauma of patients. Suffering from physical pain and financial burdens, many are also anguished by deeper problems concerning identity and moral issues, and by thoughts of possible death that leave some ``suspended over a religious abyss.'' Based on firsthand observation in hospitals and facilities for the handicapped or retarded, battered women, etc., May ( The Physician's Covenant ) notes that such problems are especially acute for victims of severe burns, major heart attacks, invasive cancer and other ailments that require painful, prolonged or chronic care, or, in the case of the elderly, exile to retirement or nursing centers. Alcoholics and certain other afflicted individuals, on the other hand, find support in sharing common ordeals in group settings like AA. (May)