BEDSIDE MANNERS: One Doctor's Reflections on the Oddly Intimate Encounters Between Patient and Healer

"Sickness brings out the worst in people.... Many of my patients exhibit neurotic behavior.... But generally, their basic attitude is that of prayer—an almost desperate pleading for mercy at the hands of illness." These words by Watts, a poet and commentator on NPR as well as a practicing physician, exemplify his nuanced and thoughtful attitude toward his patients. Both empathetic and practical, Watts relates encounters that have informed his ability to understand, diagnose and treat sickness. In "The Morbius Monster," a youngish man suffering from severe indigestion asks to be heavily sedated during an endoscopy, but even while unconscious resists the procedure. Through intuition and sensitive questioning, Watts elicits an account of early child abuse, and with the patient's cooperation, talks him through a second test with local anesthetic. In another case, Watts describes the day when, beset by the demands of his schedule, he reluctantly went to a convalescent home to visit Codger, an elderly Jewish man who was a garrulous curmudgeon. After listening to Codger's tale of how he came upon the death camps as an American soldier in WWII, Watts concludes that by making the time to see and listen to this patient, he made a human connection. All of the incidents related here, whether sad, frustrating or inconclusive, are unfailingly compelling. Agent, Michelle Tessler. (On sale Feb. 8)