Book description
Dr. Steven D. Hsi, a family physician and father of two young sons,
was diagnosed in 1995 with a rare coronary disease that caused his
death five years later at the age of forty-four. Throughout his
ordeals as a patient, including three open-heart surgeries, Dr. Hsi's
outlook on the teaching and practice of medicine changed. In 1997 he
began a journal intended for publication after his death. Written with
the assistance of newspaper columnist Jim Belshaw and completed
posthumously by Hsi's widow, Beth Corbin-Hsi, Dr. Hsi's writings urge
his colleagues to become healers, to look at their patients as human
beings with spiritual as well as physical lives.
"Every patient should read it, if only to be made aware that
they are not alone with their thoughts. Every spouse of a patient
should read it. . . . Every medical student and physician should read
it to learn that the biology of the disease is really just a small
part of the illness."--John Saiki, M. D., Medical Oncology,
University of New Mexico
"Dr. Steven Hsi asks his fellow doctors to be more than
physicians. He asks them to be healers. He says that when he thinks of
healers, he sees traditional medicine men, people who are integral
parts of their communities. They are in touch physically and
spiritually with the people they serve."--Tony Hillerman
"Closing the Chart is built on the personal journals and
experiences of Steven D. Hsi, M. D., as he travels on an intense
5-year journey from an assumption of health, professional success, and
family stability to his progressive illness and eventual death. . . .
Closing the Chart is both an engaging, page-turning read and
a story told with so little artifice that you cannot close the cover
unchanged."--Kenneth Jacobson, executive director, American
Holistic Medical Association, Explore “There are lessons on every
page, lessons to make us better caregivers, more discerning patients,
and better advocates for family members and friends who are sick. . .
. Every reader will take away different lessons from this book based
on his or her role, age, and experience. This would be an ideal book
for group study by medical and nursing students with some senior
physicians, patients, and family members. What a great learning
experience for all participants! . . . I exhort you to pick up and
read this humble story. Nothing I have encountered in the medical
narrative genre has been more worthy of my time.” -David J. Elpern, M.
D, Psychiatric Services
Jim Belshaw is a columnist with the Albuquerque Journal.
