Voices in the Band: A Doctor, Her Patients, and How the Outlook on AIDS Care Changed from Doomed to Hopeful
272Voices in the Band: A Doctor, Her Patients, and How the Outlook on AIDS Care Changed from Doomed to Hopeful
272Hardcover
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Overview
In 1992, Dr. Susan C. Ball began her medical career taking care of patients with HIV in the Center for Special Studies, a designated AIDS care center at a large academic medical center in New York City. Her unsentimental but moving memoir of her experiences bridges two distinct periods in the history of the epidemic: the terrifying early years in which a diagnosis was a death sentence and ignorance too often eclipsed compassion, and the introduction of antiviral therapies that transformed AIDS into a chronic, though potentially manageable, disease. Voices in the Band also provides a new perspective on how we understand disease and its treatment within the context of teamwork among medical personnel, government agencies and other sources of support, and patients.
Deftly bringing back both the fear and confusion that surrounded the disease in the early 1990s and the guarded hope that emerged at the end of the decade, Dr. Ball effectively portrays the grief and isolation felt by both the patients and those who cared for them using a sharp eye for detail and sensitivity to each patient's story. She also recounts the friendships, humor, and camaraderie that she and her colleagues shared working together to provide the best care possible, despite repeated frustrations and setbacks. As Dr. Ball and the team at CSS struggled to care for an underserved population even after game-changing medication was available, it became clear to them that medicine alone could not ensure a transition from illness to health when patients were suffering from terrible circumstances as well as a terrible disease.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780801453625 |
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Publisher: | Cornell University Press |
Publication date: | 04/22/2015 |
Series: | The Culture and Politics of Health Care Work |
Pages: | 272 |
Product dimensions: | 6.10(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d) |
Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Table of Contents
Author's NoteIntroduction1. 1992: Beginning2. 1992: So Much to Learn3. 1992: No Easy Answers and Little to Offer4. 1994: Too Many Drugs, No Medication5. 1994: Being Mindful of the Subtext6. 1994: Weekend on Call7. 1994: Christmas8. 1995: Another Support Group9. 1995: Mothers and Children10. 1995: Decisions and Revisions11. 1995: Colleagues and Families12. 1995: So Many Stories and Some New Faces13. 1996: Some Hope in the Despair14. 1996: Hit Early, Hit Hard15. 1997: Amazing Changes16. 1999: Despite Our Best Intentions17. 1999: Coping with a Different Paradigm18. 2000: Going HomeEpilogueWhat People are Saying About This
This is an extraordinary tale of a courageous young woman doctor and her team as they care for people who will not bend in the face of extraordinary challenges. It explores a joint journey between physician and patient through stories that are probing and personal and life-changing.
""This is a very well-written bookone that I would encourage any health profession or social worker to read.... This book is a valuable history of the AIDS epidemic from one dedicated physician's perspective.""
Susan C. Ball's lively and beautifully written memoir of her twenty years working at an AIDS clinic in a major New York City hospital is a moving account that traces the dramatic changes in AIDS treatment over the last decades and gives poignant voice to a group of socially marginalized and colorful characters who come to life as they would in a novel. Above all, Voices in the Band is a portrait of a vibrant community of doctors and patients, filled with dramatic scenes and imbued with Ball’s idealism, intelligence, and dedication.
The early AIDS epidemic forced doctors, hospitals, and entire communities to confront what it really means to care—even in the face of fear and stigma. Voices in the Band tells a deeply personal story of courage and professionalism. The book resonates with the latest Ebola epidemic and helps us recall a deeply important chapter of American medicine. Great stories, real insights.
Susan C. Ball's Voices in the Band accomplishes, with its writerly nuance and tact, what few memoirs or illness narratives even try for. Quietly, tenderly, without bombast, she gives depth and power and meaning to the patients and caregivers she represents. I feel comforted and elated by reading this account of decades of AIDS care, because Dr. Ball shows the capacity of us humans to deeply, daringly engage with one another at our times of greatest need. This book will become the next classic in AIDS literature, revealing not only triumphs in AIDS health care but also transcendent hope for profound care on this mortal earth. What a voice. What voices.