Measure of Our Days: New Beginnings at Life’s End

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.