Guiding terminal patients and their families has taught pulmonologist Bert Baas that listening, even more than talking, is a skill you have to develop. Patients would often confide their life stories to him and for a while he was part of their lives. After saying goodbye, the memories remained: beautiful and often sad.
Each patient touched Bert in his or her own way. Some encounters in particular stayed with him. Their life stories or the way they dealt with their illness touched him. He wrote down a few of those encounters and collected them in ‘De vertwijfelde man’ (The desperate man). Bert shows his vulnerability in this extraordinary book.
