Kyle Bradford Jones

A clear-eyed and courageous account of a man’s story of life as a physician, a husband and a father through the lens of mental illness, it’s impact and coping mechanisms to overcome the adversity.

Sometimes harrowing but always honest, this account of debilitating anxiety and trauma is compounded by the physically and mentally taxing experience of medical school education and everyday life.

The inimitable spirit of the author is a testament of having a clear perspective on our healthcare system and it’s shortcomings. More than ever, we need solutions to tackle mental illness in the society, without the stigma to help members gain their full potential.… (más)

As with most memoirs, this saga spans many sectors of life: religious faith (Mormon), an arduous journey (years of medical training), loneliness and solitude (missionary work in the Ukraine), deep, abiding love (a wife and kids), and obstacles (relentless anxiety). Jones relates his struggle with generalized anxiety disorder and in attaining a stable life. This difficulty is amplified by the fact that he undertakes psychologically stressful education to become a physician.

The hardships never really resolve, which may turn off some readers. Nonetheless, Jones perseveres with dignity. As much as we might hope for an amazing conclusion, his story relates a soberly realistic narrative of mental illness. The optimism stems from the humanity that flows forth and the determination of our human condition. This is not a success story – even though the protagonist practices medicine at a high level in an academic medical center. No, not achievement, but the steely strength to face each tomorrow deserves our admiration.

Overall, Jones’ telling of the tale uses quality words and technique. He returns over and again to the motif of a “gargoyle,” which symbolizes his chronic issues with anxiety. This “fallible” nature stands at odds with Jones’ (and society’s) traditional stoic view of a physician. Interestingly, a profession which must empathize with so much humanity cannot share that human frailty in itself. Jones basks in such irony.

Renditions of mental illness leave me with a question: What would the person be like without the disease? This question is ultimately unresolvable because the humanity and the mental illness are wedded. They dance together in life – even with the help of modern medicines, talk therapy, and never-ending efforts to reduce stigma. Like it or not, the Kyle Jones, MD, is, in no small measure, defined by his lifelong effort to isolate anxiety so as to limit its encroachment upon his life.

This book is recommended to those who know someone who struggles with a mental illness and to those who are that someone who struggles with a mental illness. That covers about every human! Although not all those who seriously struggle with mental health attain as much professional success as Jones, the innate dignity he brings to his condition bleeds through this book into readers’ hearts and souls. That force of humanity reminds us that our strength as humans, in no small part, lies in our fallibility.… (más)

"Society wants (and deserves) intelligent, compassionate, and effective physicians. The current arrangement dulls intellect through unsustainable and dangerous schedules, kills the compassion intrinsic in medical students and residents, and sacrifices efficacious quality of care for the “efficiency” of seeing patients in an increasingly short amount of time. We need to reassess our goals."

In "Fallible", Dr. Kyle Bradford Jones takes a necessary shotgun challenge to the medical industry establishment in a manner stylistically comparable to that of "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson. While Carson wrote a seminal piece on environmentalism, Jones focuses on the less planetary world of American healthcare. The voting public will benefit from reading Fallible, but the book will be especially valuable to the premedical student as part of college curricula and also to people interested in public policy and law. It will furthermore be interesting to people with mental illnesses.

Jones starts out with the conundrum of having an illness as a doctor, and he warns that inadequate attention to physicians’ health has been becoming alarming:

"Nearly one-third of doctors-in-training suffer from a mental illness. Physicians have a suicide rate three times higher than the general population among men, five times higher among women."

He also examines some of the causes for this disturbingly high rate, giving it context via his own life experience ( he has an anxiety disorder). He touches on alcoholism and drug usage among doctors, generally. A key target of discussion is the rather perverse culture of medical training. His insider’s description inspires a notion of having basic training with a military drill sergeant over-lording you not for six weeks but for many years. Medical culture dehumanizes its own in its present state.

Though he focuses his thoughts about professional psychology on the abusiveness of senior personnel, he makes a brief but important description of the impact of medical malpractice suits brought against doctors. Ambulance chasers’ assaults on humanity take a grim toll on the psychology of physicians. The subsequent effects on doctors’ empathy and compassion are likewise grim. The general public, he asserts, greatly underestimates the devastating effect legal actions have on subsequent morale and performance.

The extent to which the American medical establishment has become a business figures prominently at the beginning of the book:

"The Hippocratic Oath, which all doctors take when they graduate from medical school, begins with the charge “Primum non nocere” (“First do no harm”). But when something reimburses well, the oath becomes more of a loose guideline than anything else . . .”

Naturally, he highlights the largess and mercenary behaviors of some pharmaceutical companies.

Jones ends the book with a to – do list of general measures and goals to be focused on. Like Carson’s work, the book is both inspired, depressing, yet very necessary and timely. I do not doubt that Jones will harvest quite a bit of scorn for writing it. He deserves quite a bit of admiration for doing so as well.… (más)