[.ca] The Truth About Chronic Pain: Patients And Professionals ... (ISBN 0465071384)

should be required reading in med. school:
I wish every doctor, psychiatrist and psychologist would read this amazing work. It should be a required text for medical school students. It is a painfully honest account of the medical profession and society's view of the chronic pain patient. Arthur and Isodore seem to have entered my mind and viewed the world as I see it.

The Truth About Chronic Pain by Rosenfeld:
This work documents specific instances of how people get into chronic pain cycles and the actions required to manage these conditions over the long term. There are many important interviews with both patients and physicians which document typical experiences and valuable corrective steps to combat pain on an ongoing basis. This work would be a valuable addition to any personal medical library.

Telling but Lacking:
While the book does explore the personal experiences of those suffering in pain adeptly, the author and contributors fail to include many sides of this complex issue of the way pain in our society is viewed and why it is so. I would say there is a limited scope at best. The book assumes for instance that addiction is a separate disease when in fact many patients in pain have co existing addiction problems past or present which clouds the issues inherent in prescribing opiates obviously. Further, there is growing acceptance currently for the theory that "disease" is a term applied to addiction too freely, apparently a trend not limited to outside of this book. Also I note a glaring lack of references. I recall seeing similar discourse and material discussed in several separate magazine articles and web blogs unrelated to this author, pre dating the publishing of this book. Not all original premises but certainly a valiant attempt to have an all inclusive resource.

Interesting, but not useful:
If you're looking for useful advice in dealing with pain this is not the book for you. This is the first reading I've done on this subject, and I was hoping for some practical advice and specific pain-coping strategies rather than a lot of talk about why chronic pain is generally undertreated by the medical profession. I read this book and I still don't know what to do about my pain.

36 Conversations Create a Mosaic of Chronic Pain:
In this book, Rosenfeld visits 36 people - famous and not - and engages them in conversations which explore every aspect of chronic pain. Divided into patients, caregivers and thinkers (with some overlapping), the three sections of the book (when combined with Rosenfeld's linking commentary) create a mosaic which is comprehensive, yet always facinating. The author unerringly asks the very follow-up questions the reader would like to have answered. These are genuine conversations, not a collection of responses to pre-programmed questions. For those concerned about loved ones suffering from chronic pain, the insights, the information, the list of resources and the book's glossary are invaluable.