The Pain Chronicles by Melanie Thernstrom

And I hoped to chip away at the gap in understanding that exists between the caring and the cared-for, so that whichever side we’re on at a given moment, we can do better. I also wanted the challenge of expressing the science in the way that only I, the owner of the traumatised body in my book, could. I chose to include the science because studying it during recovery had given me a crucial sense of purpose and progress, and I wanted readers to experience the same joy of discovery in learning it that I did. In my book Beautiful Trauma, I write about that experience, as well as the science behind it – from the development of modern reconstructive surgery over thousands of years of war, to the psychology of resilience and how neuroplasticity enabled me to regain use of my “ replanted” hand. In 2006, my hand was partially amputated in an explosion in my Brooklyn apartment.

Comprising both patient and practitioner stories, the expanded genre illuminates more of the innumerable, interconnected factors driving human health, and increases the possibility of empathy for all who strive to influence them. Now they’re forging a new type of medical memoir, in which they, too, examine the science underpinning their conditions, while contextualising it with lived experience, and expressing it with a fresh creative vision. The science in these books is not incidental it thrusts pathology into the pages as a central character, variously demanding the physician’s and patient’s understanding, negotiation, appeasement and reconciliation.īut as any of today’s doctor-authors would acknowledge, practitioners are not the only experts in the stories they live and tell: Patients (which is to say everyone, at some point) possess knowledge of their unique identities, bodies and lives that is crucial to the processes and stories of healing, and voices that may be more broadly relatable. More recently it has been enriched by the likes of Atul Gawande, Gavin Francis, and Gabriel Weston, gifted physicians and writers who use patient case studies as a springboard to explore illness, the science behind it, and the existential dilemmas it gives rise to. Neurologist Oliver Sacks was often credited with creating the template for the modern medical memoir in the 1970s. Was it the āšipu (“sorcerer”) or asu (“physician”) in ancient Mesopotamia? The mother, the midwife or the physician during modern childbirth? But seen through another lens, it is a story of competition for the title of “expert” in matters of healing – a tug-of-war over whose knowledge is valuable, who should make decisions, who achieves better results, who deserves resources. T he story of medicine is commonly framed as a steady accumulation of life-prolonging discoveries, inventions and practices.

The Pain Chronicles by Melanie Thernstrom