A Commitment to Compassion: Reflections from a Life of Service

In A Commitment to Compassion, Avram R. Kraft, MD, reminds us that each of us can make a difference. Avram makes that difference against a medical landscape, but in sharing his wisdom, insights, doubt, and vulnerabilities, he invites all of us to consider what compassion means and how it can be part of our daily living. As he states in a chapter called Repairing the World, “Every day, we have an opportunity to make an impact on one another. You are only as good as what you bring to the table and not what you remove from it. ”In a very accessible interview format, Avram reveals the kind of small and large daily choices he’s made over a lifetime as he’s looked for meaning and used his faith in service to others. These conversations underscore the value of storytelling and real listening in a world increasingly full of distractions. Dignity, Acceptance of Self and Finding Balance are among the powerful chapters and pervasive themes that invite the reader to consider their own personal journeys and how they, too, can be of service. A perennial student of medicine, ethics and ancient texts, Avram, a retired surgeon, was an early advocate of hospice and palliative care and a passionate teacher of compassion in medicine. As one early reviewer said of the book, “It is the testament of a good human being who has healed many people physically—and probably even more people spiritually.”

A native son of New England, AVRAM R. KRAFT was born, raised and schooled in Boston and Brookline, Massachusetts; Wells, Maine; New York City, New York; and Burlington, Vermont. Avram served in the United States Navy in Bethesda, Maryland, before entering academic medicine at the University of Illinois and providing care in Chicago at Cook County Hospital. In the 1980s, he went into private practice in Highland Park, Illinois. Avram taught Compassion in Medical Care at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Evanston. Avram, sadly, passed away in 2023.

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