While modern medicine permits today's doctors to dispense far more than compassion, it has also become much more difficult to form a meaningful bond with our doctors. The trend toward depersonalized medicine has been exacerbated by the explosion of managed care. The frustration created by this kind of health care is widespread and felt by doctors and patients alike.Fortunately, some doctors and patients still fight determinedly to make productive relationships a priority in health care. The stories in The Best Medicine present just a few of these doctor/ patient pairs. The pairs represent a cross-section of America: from a Navajo woman pediatrician and a teacher's aide in Arizona, to a 73-year old New York neurologist and his five-year-old patient. Their stories are inspiring and instructional, antidotes to the frustration that all of us feel about modern medicine.
