Dr. Jerome Groopman, Harvard Medical School professor and New Yorker staff writer, has written this book to show us the importance of how hope is essential to life.  We have often heard that the positive attitude of a seriously ill person is beneficial to their well-being.

Dr. Groopman takes us through several cases he encountered during his thirty-year medical career.  He points out several times that dealing with a person's emotions such as their hope is something you do not learn in medical school.   He often wondered why some people find hope even though they are seriously ill and others do not.  Dr. Groopman also discovered that patients do have a right to hope while he, as the doctor, believed they had no reason to do so. 

This is a fascinating book - one that I could not put down.  It is also very moving as Dr. Groopman talks about his seriously ill patients.  There were times when some of his colleagues were also very ill and he had to deal with the issue of them wanting to deny any treatment.  As Dr. Groopman states, he did not learn what "hope" really meant to a patient anywhere in the medical books.  Instead, he learned it first-hand through his own personal experience over many years.  Dr. Groopman sums it up very well in his conclusion when he states, "We are just beginning to appreciate hope's reach and have not defined its limits.  I see hope as the very heart of healing.  For those who have hope, it may help some to live longer, and it will help all to live better."  This is a good book - add it to your reading list!

REVIEWED BY NANCY EATON

DO NOT REPRINT WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR, NANCY EATON