Closing the Chart: A Dying Physician Examines Family, Faith, and Medicine

By Steven D. Hsi

Book Overview

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

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 082633038X
• ISBN13: 9780826330383
• Release Date: July 2008
• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Length: 222 Pages
• Weight: 0.77 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.4" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Wow...

My parents attended the same church as Dr. Hsi but this book came to me through my fiance's mother, a retired nurse in CO, who is passing this book around as a must read after receiving a copy from my parents. Through the years, she was horrified to experience the reduction in her & her peers ability to provide proper care as a result of "managed care" & opted to move into insurance rather than continuing her successful career as a nurse. This isn't a typical reading choice for me but was eye-opening & a quick, absorbing read. I'm sure my seatmates on two different plane rides were wondering what was wrong as I dabbed at my eyes in vain to stem the flow of tears. Decent doctoring is something we take for granted & we don't always know how or are made to feel guilty or inadequate when we press for answers or explanations from an authority figure such as an esteemed specialist or doctor. We need to push for change & I only hope that books like this become mandatory in the medical study curriculum!

Heartfelt Soulful Book

He describes so well what family members go through when a loved one is terminally ill. Doctors do need to look at the whole person, their family and their spiritual side and treat people holistically. He spoke quite well of the pain that is often inflicted on those who are the most helpless by those in the position to be most helpful. This definetly is a gift to be given to those in the medical field or those who are thinking of entering it. Steve was my doctor when I was growing up and we went to the same church. I remember praying for him when the calls would go out that he needed surgery while praying for my aunt who was terminally ill at the same time...what he describes about being a patient is not far off from what my Aunt experienced while she was hospitalized in Arizona.

The head of the nail has been struck!

As a brief patient of Dr. Hsi's and a memeber of the healthcare industry for 25 years, this book struck at the core of my very being. I not only see what he experienced everyday in my line of work but also expierienced it on a different level for myself. Anyone thinking of pursueing a career in medicine, should let this book open your eyes and your heart. It would make sense to have this be required reading for every nurse, pre-med student, intern, resident or seasoned physician. I know with some it would fall on deaf ears, however if it only made a difference in a few, what a difference it could make in so many lives. Many thanks to Beth Corbin-Hsi, Jim Belshaw and of course Steven D. Hsi, M.D who gives us wisdom and courage through his words even now.

Required reading for practitioner and patient alike

To say that this is a profoundly moving work is understatement. It should be mandatory reading for any patient or care giver, but more especially for any who would be called "Healer". Simply stated ... closing the chart is a magnificient work. It will no doubt become highly acclaimed and will be appreciated by any care giver or patient in the modern world of medicine. It is rich in texture and flavor, providing a remarkable insight into the progression of change that occurs when a family is faced with a profound illness,and must come face to face with the methdologies of modern medicine. This work will provide the next level of understanding in the process of illness, such as that initiated by Norman Cousins in Anatomy of An Illness.