The End Of Healing
Jim Bailey
The Healthy City, May 1 2015, $21.95
ISBN: 9780985420390
In 2000, Dr. Don Newman works the night shift at
University Hospital when a distraught woman brings in her mom. Newman realizes from that first exam that the
left half of his new patient Mrs. Bellamy’s brain is dead and that she will
never walk or talk again; but also knows what is required of him since Medicaid
will cover Mrs. Bellamy’s care. Over the
next three months Newman increasingly feels depressed that costs are run up to
make a substantial profit by allowing Mrs. Bellamy to suffer a slow painful
death and giving false hope to her grief-stricken daughter.
Although in debt due to high tuition costs,
Newman abandons his plan of becoming a money-making cardiologist. Instead he enrolls in Dr. Sampson’s Medical
Systems at New England’s Florence College where he meets nurse practitioner
Frances Hunt and wealthy surgeon Bruce Markum.
Under Sampson’s mentoring, Newman begins to understand the health
care-government complex in which the greatest profit rules regardless of the
monetary and emotional costs to the patient and his or her loved ones.
The End Of Healing is an insightful condemnation of
the American healthcare system in which stunned readers will go through
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross model (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression
and significantly Acceptance that we can do nil in the macro but plenty in the
micro). The fictional subplot is well-written
even with the standard romantic triangle.
What grips readers is the interwoven denunciating
documentation (especially a simplified summary chart) that makes a profound
case that the “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” (Dylan Thomas) is not always the
right thing for the patient but always great for the bottom line.
Harriet Klausner
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