In his third and final book, Who Holds the Doctor?, published on Oct. 20, radiologist Prof. Dr. Mathias Goyen explores the emotional demands of medicine and the personal toll of caring for others.
Goyen, chief medical officer at GE HealthCare and affiliated with the University of Hamburg, Germany, examines how physicians cope with responsibility, uncertainty, and the emotional weight of clinical practice.
The human side of medicine
Who Holds the Doctor? What Caring for Others Asks of Us concludes a trilogy that began with What I Didn't Learn in Medical School and continued with The Things We Know to Be Wrong (But Do Anyway).
The first book, published in November 2025, explored the gaps between medical education and clinical reality, including burnout, hospital politics, financial literacy, and the doctor-patient relationship.
Reviewing that book, digital health journalist Artur Olesch argued that medical schools often fail to prepare physicians for the emotional demands of caring for patients.
"They teach physical anatomy, but not the anatomy of human hopes and fears," Olesch wrote. The final installment turns the attention toward caregivers themselves, asking who supports physicians as they navigate the pressures of looking after others.
Who Holds the Doctor? is available from today on Amazon in paperback and Kindle editions.
