Dr. Jerome Groopman's third book, "The Anatomy of Hope," is about the power of hope to heal and to assuage pain. In it, he makes a case for the connection between the patient's spiritual state and the outcome of illness.
The book, released in January, is a series of accounts of grievously ill patients Dr. Groopman has known who, buoyed by hope, have either found a cure or have at least been able to end their lives in and serenity.
It was inspired by Dr. Groopman's own experience of illness -- and hope. A gangling 6 foot 5, Dr. Groopman, 52, is accident prone.
"I am a klutz," he said in an interview.
In 1979, training for the Boston Marathon, he ruptured a disk. He tried surgery. It failed. Nineteen years of agony followed. Then in 1999, he consulted a rehabilitation doctor at New England Baptist Hospital who prescribed exercises that, he said, would initially cause even more pain but would "re-educate" the memory of it, enabling Dr. Groopman to "work through it."
At first, the exercises were excruciating. But he clung to hope and, slowly, the pain disappeared. By the word hope, Dr. Groopman said, he does not mean "a magic wand, which by itself is going to melt a cancer or purge H.I.V. from the blood."
"True hope is cleareyed," he added. "It sees all the difficulties that exist and all the potential for failure, but through that, carves a realistic path to a better future."
We love the message that true hope is cleareyed; we need hope to heal not only medical conditions but also the raft of seemingly intractable issues facing us into today's world.
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Dr. Jerome Groopman, Harvard Medical School
