A moving memoir and an extraordinary love story that shows how an
expert physician became a family caregiver and learned why care is so
central to all our lives and yet is at risk in today's world.
When Dr. Arthur Kleinman, an eminent Harvard psychiatrist and social
anthropologist, began caring for his wife, Joan, after she was diagnosed
with early-onset Alzheimer's disease, he found just how far the act of
caregiving extended beyond the boundaries of medicine. In The Soul of
Care: The Moral Education of a Husband and a Doctor, Kleinman delivers
a deeply human and inspiring story of his life in medicine and his
marriage to Joan, and he describes the practical, emotional and moral
aspects of caretaking. He also writes about the problems our society
faces as medical technology advances and the cost of health care soars
but caring for patients no longer seems important.
Caregiving is long, hard, unglamorous work--at moments joyous, more
often tedious, sometimes agonizing, but it is always rich in meaning. In
the face of our current political indifference and the challenge to the
health care system, he emphasizes how we must ask uncomfortable
questions of ourselves, and of our doctors. To give care, to be present
for someone who needs us, and to feel and show kindness are deep
emotional and moral experiences, enactments of our core values. The
practice of caregiving teaches us what is most important in life, and
reveals the very heart of what it is to be human.
