The Power of Kindness

In The Power of Kindness, Dr. Brian Goldman leaves the comfortable, familiar surroundings of the hospital emergency room in search of his own lost compassion. A top neuroscientist performs an MRI scan of his brain to see if he is hard-wired for empathy. A researcher at Western University in Ontario tests his personality and makes a startling discovery. Goldman then circles the planet in search of the most empathetic people alive, to hear their stories and learn their secrets. He visits a boulevard in São Paulo, Brazil, where he meets a woman who reunited a homeless poet with his family; a research lab in Kyoto, Japan, where he encounters a lifelike, empathetic android; and a nursing home in rural Pennsylvania, where he meets a therapist who has an uncanny knack for knowing what’s inside the hearts and minds of patients with dementia, as well as her protege, a woman who talked a gun-wielding robber into walking away from his crime.

A powerful, brave, and engaging work by one of this country’s top journalists, The Power of Kindness takes us far from the theatre of medicine and into the world at large, investigating why kindness is so vital to our existence.