Rage and Reconciliation

Inspiring a Health Care Revolution

Rage and Reconciliation, one of Creative Nonfiction’s most popular issues, has been re-released. The book includes new essays and an 80-minute CD containing three essays read by professional actors and a panel discussion of the ethical dimensions of the issues raised. In this special issue produced in conjunction with Pittsburgh’s Jewish Healthcare Foundation, writers tackle healthcare in America, including problems of patient rights and professional responsibility. In “Notes on a Difficult Case,” Ruthann Robson details the traumatic results of a dangerous misdiagnosis; inA Merging of Head and Heart,” Judith Dancoff discusses her painful sexual dysfunction, the result of a pituitary tumor; and in “Postpartum,” Nancy Linnon reveals her struggles with postpartum depression.

Reviews

In these intense and searing essays, a lawyer describes her seesawing emotions over a misdiagnosis of what she was told was an inoperable tumor; a physician formerly employed by an HMO rails at the accepted practice of managed-care organizations finding legal loopholes to trump a patient’s needs; a physician wrestles with the idea of doctors policing themselves, knowing he is powerless to prevent the mistakes of an incompetent colleague. Includes an 80-minute CD containing three of the essays read by professional actors and a lively, sometimes angry and emotional panel discussion of the ethical dimensions of the issues raised. – See more at: http://www.creativenonfiction.org/reviews/136#sthash.72SAM85G.dpuf

—Texas A&M University Press

In many ways it’s a potent collection […] these essays movingly, and often incisively, diagnose some of what ails our health-care system. […] Creative Nonfiction founder and editor Lee Gutkind intends to restore individual voicescomplex, curious, human voicesto patients, doctors and others in a discussion that’s typically limited to sound bites, anecdotes and dry policy statements. – Bill O’Driscoll – See more at: http://www.creativenonfiction.org/reviews/135#sthash.rGUq8AaS.dpuf

—Pittsburgh City Paper