In this insightful, thought-provoking book, Klitzman illuminates how patients find and maintain hope when facing serious ailments. As a physician, researcher and writer, he masterfully weaves together gripping stories of doctors, patients and chaplains, and recent research demonstrating how hope and spirituality positively affect human health. This remarkable book shows how physicians need not only to use cutting-edge medical science, but to be equally aware of the human spirit. -Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize Winner and author of Song of the Cell Robert Klitzman limns the ways that medicine fails to satisfy the spiritual yearning in most people. Science explains a great deal, but the central questions of existence lie outside its purview, and Klitzman eloquently reveals the heroism of chaplains who address this gap.-Andrew Solomon, author of Far from the Tree This engrossing book shines a light on the key role hospital chaplains can play in helping doctors care for their patients. The book is essential reading for anyone who has ever been sick or looked after someone who was-which is to say, for everyone. -Will Schwalbe, author of The End of Your Life Book Club Klitzman's account of the place of chaplaincy in medicine contributes importantly to the clinical care of the whole person. This book provides an on-the-ground depiction of what chaplains in the hospital contribute, and what clinicians can learn. - Arthur Kleinman, author of The Soul of Care Drawing on extensive interviews and research, Klitzman adds immeasurably to our understandings of spirituality and religion in medicine. This groundbreaking book helps point the way toward more compassionate and holistic care. - Harold Koenig, Director, Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health, Duke University In Doctor, Will You Pray for Me?, Klitzman provides the most comprehensive examination to date of the role of pastoral care in contemporary clinical settings. Such research is long overdue, considering how rapid changes in American society--including technological advances, widespread polarization and the breakdown of many traditional forms of support--create an ever increasing need for spiritual wellbeing. A work of curiosity and compassion, Doctor, Will You Pray for Me? proves an essential read for the devout and the secular alike, an invitation to the faithful, the skeptical and the truly uncertain to discover the rich professional lives of the men and women who tend to the souls of our sickest brothers and sisters in their times of greatest need. * Dr. Jacob M. Appel, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai *
