The Measure of Our Days

With The Measure of Our Days, Dr. Jerome Groopman established himself as an eloquent new voice in the literature of medicine. In these eight moving portraits, he offers us a compelling look at what is to be learned when life itself can no longer be taken for granted.

These stories are diverse--from Kirk, an aggressive venture capitalist determined to play the odds with controversial chemotherapy treatments; to Elizabeth, an imperious dowager humbled by a rare blood disease; to Elliott, who triumphs over leukemia and creates for himself a definition of success--but each, in the words of Maggie Scarf, "transmute the misery of terrible suffering into a marvelous celebration of the sweetness of human life." Far from medical case studies, these are spiritual journeys of questioning and self-awareness, embarked on by the physician as well as the patient.

Prologue

Kirk
Dan
Cindy
Matt
Debbie
Alex
Elizabeth
Elliott
Epilogue

Acknowledgments
Index

Jerome Groopman, M.D. is the Recanati Professor of Immunology at Harvard Medical School, Chief of Experimental Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and one of the world's leading researchers in cancer and AIDS. He and his work have been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Time magazine, as well as in numerous scientific journals. He lives with his family in Brookline, Massachusetts.