The Lonely Patient

November 27, 2006
Beautifully written, this is a look into the hearts and minds of people suffering serious illness: into the terrors that they often don't express directly. Stein centers his investigation on his brother-in-law Richard, diagnosed with a rare sinus cancer at the age of 50. According to Stein, a professor at the Brown University School of Medicine and a novelist (The Lynching Tree
), such patients pass through four emotional stages—betrayal, terror, loneliness and loss—which he illustrates with riveting case studies. One patient had a mysterious bump on his head; because of his fear of anesthesia, he decided to forgo a necessary operation. Stein's most expressive prose evokes the isolated world of the patient, who is locked into a limited existence, confined in a hospital room or at home, exemplified at its most extreme by a quadriplegic who feels completely shut in to "a strange indoor island world." Stein says he now understands the importance of taking the hand of a fearful patient, who need not display courage in front of physicians. This is a moving and eloquent testimony from a caring practitioner.