Janet Abrahms, MD
For Janet Abrahm, MD, codirector of the Pain and Palliative Care Program at Dana-Farber, helping to ease patients' pain and suffering doesn't stop when she leaves the hospital each night. Thanks to her book, A Physician's Guide to Pain and Symptom Management in Cancer Patients, she is giving clinicians everywhere tools to better support their patients.
Now in its second edition (published in May 2005), the volume provides user-friendly instruction about communication needs of patients and families, symptom management, and end-of-life care. It reflects her 25 years of experience in the field and includes questions that patients are sometimes afraid to ask their primary doctors, such as, "If I take pain medication now, will I get so used to it that I won't have anything that works if my pain gets worse?"
"I wrote this because I felt there wasn't a similar book for clinicians whose patients didn't have palliative care services available," says Abrahm, also of Brigham and Women's. "There were manuals and textbooks, but nothing with stories about patients. I discovered that patients have many unasked questions, and that if we didn't uncover them, we couldn't help."
The project allowed Abrahm to revisit some of her patients and their stories, as well as focus her thinking and develop her voice as an author. While this one targets clinicians, Abrahm hopes her next book will be for patients. "I would like to tell patients what doctors are worried about," she says. "I would also focus on putting myself in a family member's shoes and understanding what information I would need when I talked with the doctor."
