Healing the Wounds

Healing the Wounds is a deep dive on what is wrong with healthcare in America. It is based on 40 years of experience as a primary care physician (in Family Practice). It weaves together stories of actual patients and colleagues. There is so much promise of what Medicine has to offer. The discoveries in the last 100 years are astounding. Life span has doubled. The deadly diseases of childhood are gone. We can now look at the genome and alter the course of deadly cancers. When President Eisenhower had a heart attack in 1955, he was confined to bed for 3 months. When President Clinton complained of chest pain in 2004, he rapidly had two stents put in and was back to work within days. Yet for all of this progress, doctors are more burned out and depressed than ever. Fewer young doctors are selecting to practice primary care. Being a doctor is immensely satisfying. You get to work in one of the most challenging and intellectually satisfying fields, care for sick and injured patients on some of their hardest days, positively affect people everyday, and have tremendous job security. And yet, patients are unhappy, hospitals are barely surviving, and soaring costs may tumble the whole system and drag society with it. The book compares what is going on in other countries. Are they better off? What can we learn? Is there hope? The book offers concrete solutions to both the structural and emotional turmoil. As the father of modern medicine, Willima Osler, said in 1900: 'The practice of medicine is an art, not a trade; a calling, not a business; a calling in which your heart will be exercised equally with your head.'

Dr. Jeffrey Kleiman is a board certified Family Practitioner of 41 years. He was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. Kleiman ran a medical ethics group for ten years and was head of his hospital's Medical Ethics Committee for five years. His hobbies include songwriting, martial arts, playwriting, taking broad based courses and continuous reading. He always felt honored to be a physician, thinking it the best profession in the world. He does extensive volunteer hospice work. He lives in Cape Elizabeth Maine along with his wife, children and grandchildren.