Foreword to this issue.
Many years ago, I read a gripping advertisement for a women’s novel called Magda’s Fate. It said: “The fate of Magda – an orphan who, after great hardship in Europe and immense suffering in Africa, finally finds rest in the arms of a beloved childhood friend. Available at all bookstores, price 16 crowns.”
I can say that the fate of the text you now hold in your hands is no less moving. A respected publishing house once ordered from me a book that would be some kind of guide for patients, something in the sense of how to complain correctly, what one can encounter during a sick passage through our healthcare system, and how to face it properly.
So I wrote one chapter and submitted it for review to see whether they accepted this style, and they said yes. I then wrote about two hundred norm pages and handed in the manuscript on time. But then things hit a snag. The editor expected that there the patient would find a description of what a CT is, what a pheasant looks like when it is not in the forest but in a hospital, and what a thermometer is for. They did not want the work I had handed them, and besides, they said it treated somber situations with too light a hand. That unsettled me, but did not break me.
I started looking for another publisher, and while I was searching, I came across Mr. Vašut through his native sister. He took over the text and published it among other guides for do-it-yourselfers. It seemed amazing to me that a person who had become a patient could tinker with their own health. There turned out to be enough little tinkerers, so we sold through the print run.
It moved me that a publishing house far more reputable than the original one became interested in this do-it-yourself guide, and I believe it will satisfy readers thirsty for information just as it has thousands of them, at least three of whom will be satisfied.
Author: MUDr. Radkin Honzák psychiatrist Author’s blog: http://blog.aktualne.cz/blogy/radkin-honzak.php