We Have a Launch Date
I always wanted to write a book that had a teal cover.
Not really, but that will be happening on January 13, 2022. The manuscript that I wrote last year and submitted to Nancy Collins, Sr. VP for Content Procurement at the American Association for Physician Leadership® will launch soon. The teal and white cover is very pretty.
I signed a contract to publish this book in May of 2021 and went about the business of revising my manuscript. My original focus and anecdotal tie-ins were all based on my own experiences as an emergency physician. The editorial team requested that I rewrite the book to appeal to all healthcare professionals who take care of patients in all clinical settings. I consulted a number of my RN, OB-GYN, and family medicine friends for ideas. My husband, Toby, who is a gastroenterologist, provided numerous tales of difficult patients from his practice.
To add visual interest, I wanted to place some pictures or artwork to add to the text. We decided that the open access photos so frequently seen online in blogposts would be too generic. Nancy asked a graphic artist at the marketing firm VIVAYOS to see what he could come up with. Victor Cruceanu came up with several works that are called continuous contour line drawings. (my sister, Karen Harris, a retired art teacher was kind enough to tell me that). I find they add a nice creative touch to the book. I even had him do a drawing of me from one of my photos to include inside the book.
The request for an author’s head shot was a far more difficult task than writing the book. I agonized about the photo shoot for about a month. I had to tame my naturally curly hair and learn a few simple make up techniques. Somehow, I had never bothered to learn those basics. I had Laura Marshall come and photograph me with and without the white coat at a few places around my house. I even had her take a few shots with Dolly, the poodle puppy.
Editing progressed over the Summer and Autumn until I had a pretty good electronic copy to show people. In November I started the very awkward process of asking a few friends and several total strangers to read my book. Of course, I realized that this was a tremendous favor to ask of people who were working full time and approaching the busy holiday season. I was given a deadline around Thanksgiving to get some blurbs or endorsements to place either on the back cover or inside the book.
Finding the email addresses of some medical celebrities proved quite difficult. Sanjay Gupta, please email me when you see this. Danielle Ofri MD, who was over her head busy with a fund-raising gala for the Belleview Literary Review and her clinical duties, was very gracious and absolutely came through nicely. I also asked Louis Profeta MD who practices emergency medicine in Indianapolis while writing books, blog posts, and doing speaking engagements at numerous colleges and Universities. He graciously read my request and told me that he gets several requests like this every month. He would have to read the book and see what he thought. I told him, of course, see what you think.
A week later, I got another email from Louis. Here is what he said:
“I really thought I’d hate it….I absolutely loved it in fact I already catch myself doing some of your suggestions. Great job Joan. You should be proud of what you’ve done … I think it’s a home run.”
Wow. I hope that many of you will read the amazing review he wrote for me on the book’s back cover. Several other folks also wrote generous endorsements that are either on the back cover or on the inside few pages. I collected those and sent them to the publisher while we did the final edit for grammar and typos. I have sent some electronic copies around to try to get some interest and hopefully, when the time is right, some honest reviews.
The book is already on the website for the American Association for Physician Leadership, Inc.
Amazon page and press releases for launch due on January 13. The target audience is physicians, nurses, PA’s, NPs, paramedics, EMT’s and all of the folks who take care of difficult patients. It is absolutely not my intention to exclude anyone from reading this book. Will non-healthcare people want to read it? That’s the question that remains to be seen. Every one of us will be a patient at one time or another so we become part of the doctor-patient relationship. Wouldn’t it help to know what the other person is thinking and feeling?
Of course, some of you are going to call “FOUL!” That’s not fair. I just have pain or I have a chronic medical condition, why do I get labelled as a difficult patient? Just to be clear, I describe a widespread practice of labelling and judging people that all the human doctors, nurses, and the rest, apply to some of the people who they care for. I use quotes around the word good when I define what makes a “good” patient. I am absolutely against the practice of labelling and judging patients. I believe the practice is a form of bias that propagates racism, sexism, and every other ism you can think of.
The objective of the book is to give people tools to change the way that they currently think about difficult patients. Flight attendants have “difficult” passengers, teachers have “difficult” students, and parents sometimes have “difficult” children. Whether at work or at home, we all have strong ideas about how we wish the other people in our lives should act. My objective is to give health care workers tools to drop the “shoulds” and accept people as they are. (#nodifficultpatients)
In about a year, this book went from a power point slide show to a beautiful little book with cool drawings and a powerful, positive message. Receiving this message and incorporating these tools to think with more intention will absolutely result in our beautiful doctors, nurses, and medics feeling better and more hopeful. Those curious and motivated people are the ones who I want taking care of me and my family one day.
