Love and Injustice in Medicine

Love and Injustice in Medicine explores the injustices Jeff Nisker has witnessed in his many years in medicine, including the injustice of illness itself. As in Nisker's previous books, he uses narrative to investigate health-ethics problems, while at the same time promoting compassion in healthcare. Love and Injustice in Medicine will be of interest to health professionals of all disciplines, their students, and anyone interested in compassion and social justice in healthcare.

Nisker begins Love and Injustice in Medicine with his intimate experience of being immobile inside an MRI machine's rotating magnet during a cerebellar stroke. His immobility reminded him that he had promised to write a story for the woman he calls Ruth, who had driven her chin-operated powerchair into his knees and demanded, "Hey, Doc who writes stories, write one about me and the fucking way your system treats me." Ruth died from inadequate healthcare and social support while she was describing the injustices inflicted upon her by Canada's supposedly wonderful health and social systems. Although Nisker was touched deeply by Ruth's story, he did not begin to write the story he had promised her until his immunity had been shut down by chemotherapy. 

Nisker flashes back to his uncle's kitchen-table declaration, "You must go to medical school or Hitler will have won"; a declaration that derailed his desire to become Atticus Finch. Yet the social-justice imperative instilled in Nisker by his mother and grandmother, both of whom died young from breast cancer, fills the pages of Love and Injustice in Medicine. Nisker writes about his years as a medical student, resident, clinician, health-ethics researcher, and advocate for social justice in Canadian healthcare. He contends that social justice, rather than being a dominant force in Canadian healthcare in the 2020s, is instead evaporating in privatization, with an inadequate number of physicians to provide excellent care for their patients while at the same time caring for their families and themselves. Nisker uses narrative to present his contention in an accessible manner, not only to health professionals and students of all disciplines, but to the general public, who through their votes are able to promote social justice in Canadian healthcare.