Also Human

"With a compassionate eye for detail and a deep understanding of just how the systems we train and practice in as doctors can fail us as human beings, Caroline Elton offers a crucial and timely reminder that doctors arealso human."

"Written with perceptive sympathy for the wounded healer, it is necessary reading for both doctors and patients."

"Elton...passionately advocates for paying greater attention to the unique emotional needs of physicians."

"This important and much needed book describes the psychological difficulties of doctors in training and in practice and the woeful lack of support to them from teachers, colleagues, and institutions."

"Elton is particularly good on the subtle matters of gender and ethnic discrimination that punish doctors who are different from the white, male mainstream.... A useful adjunct to books from within medicine by the likes of Richard Selzer [and] Atul Gawande."

"Elton, a vocational psychologist, spent the last 20 years observing, counseling, and helping very real, vulnerable, and wholly human people in the medical field.... Written in a welcoming style, this practical and helpful look at best medical practices will benefit patients, practitioners, and everyone else involved in health care."

"At a time when burnout and depression among doctors have reached epidemic proportions, Caroline Elton masterfully dissects the issues to explain how we arrived at this point. Ultimately, we must remember that doctors are Also Human and we need a comprehensive approach to uplift the emotional well-being of the medical workforce."

"At the heart of this book is the problem of how emotional resilience can be identified in prospective doctors and strengthened in practicing doctors. We are fallible human beings, not omniscient gods."

"A vivid, compelling account of how wounded healers may struggle to find healing. Elton has helped hundreds of doctors through crises in their personal and professional lives, and her stories read as an urgent manifesto to reform the caring professions--that they might begin to care for their own. With reference from the psychological literature, as well as her own extensive clinical experience, she examines why some doctors are overwhelmed by the pressures of medicine, while others may even thrive under them."

"Fascinating and troubling. Read it and weep."

"Haunting, beautiful, and urgent."

"For patients and doctors alike, this book is required reading."

"[Elton's] description of the psychological forces underlying the ways doctors act--avoidance coping, intellectualization, suppression, repression--is fascinating."