Title: Mayday A Physician as Patient
Author: Allan Lohaus, M.D.
Publisher: Synergy Books
ISBN: 978-0-9755922-9-8
Genre: Autobiography/Medical/Self-help
Presentation: Hard Bound with dust jacket
No. of Pages: 114
About the Book (From the inner flap) - Mayday! is a medical odyssey journal revealing the thought, feelings, humor and spirituality of an American physician during months of hopitalization. Rising on swells of optimism and tugged down by pain, infections, operations and adverse outcomes, he drifts through waters too deep to stand in and too dark for him to see hidden dangers. The illness ends in New Zealand, two years later. This body, mind, and spirit experience of dying and returningto health is a personal and universal journey.
A little more about the book (as I understood after reading) - It is a good indepth account of the doctor's struggles with illness, fortunately for him, an acute problem and not chronic illness. He was operated for removal of some intestinal polyps and the post-operative infections and the resultant complications required three more surgeries to restore his body to a semblance of normalcy.
What I liked about the book - The intensely personal narrative and the good style. Since it is a relatively short book, it could be read in a day. Since I always had an abiding interest in medical matters (though I became a metallurigst), I enjoyed reading the details of the treatment and the operative procedures, his emotions as he was struggling with pain and a very real chance of prolonged illness or death!
What did not appeal to me - None.
What else I would have liked to see - A fuller account of his younger days, and his own mom's struggle with Hodgkin's disease etc. His estrangement from his biological father probably pushed him to mature spiritually since he searched and found his father first in senior friends and later in God through Christ. I would also have liked to read a more detailed account of his treatment.
What I liked about the book - The intensely personal narrative and the good style. Since it is a relatively short book, it could be read in a day. Since I always had an abiding interest in medical matters (though I became a metallurigst), I enjoyed reading the details of the treatment and the operative procedures, his emotions as he was struggling with pain and a very real chance of prolonged illness or death!
What did not appeal to me - None.
What else I would have liked to see - A fuller account of his younger days, and his own mom's struggle with Hodgkin's disease etc. His estrangement from his biological father probably pushed him to mature spiritually since he searched and found his father first in senior friends and later in God through Christ. I would also have liked to read a more detailed account of his treatment.
