This Won't Hurt a Bit: (And Other White Lies): My Education in Medicine and Motherhood Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I only recently started following Michelle's blog and pre-ordered the book on a whim, but I'm so glad I did. I will be recommending this book to all of my med school friends. Her writing is clever and intelligent and I couldn't stop reading this account of her journey to being a doctor and a mother. As a first year medical student, I've worried about exactly the same issues that she went through. The relentless candor of this book combined with her witty patient stories makes for an entertaining read in which, for the first time, I truly felt that I understood what it's like to be a resident. Her account is inspiring, and brightens the light at the end of the tunnel for those of us who place highest priority on both our family and our work.

Click Here to see more reviews about: This Won't Hurt a Bit: (And Other White Lies): My Education in Medicine and Motherhood

Michelle Au started medical school armed only with a surfeit of idealism, a handful of old ER episodes for reference, and some vague notion about "helping people."This Won't Hurt a Bit is the story of how she grew up and became a real doctor.It's a no-holds-barred account of what a modern medical education feels like, from the grim to the ridiculous, from the heartwarming to the obscene. Unlike most medical memoirs, however, this one details the author's struggles to maintain a life outside of the hospital, in the small amount of free time she had to live it. And, after she and her husband have a baby early in both their medical residencies, Au explores the demands of being a parent with those of a physician, two all-consuming jobs in which the lives of others are very literally in her hands.Au's stories range from hilarious to heartbreaking and hit every note in between, proving more than anything that the creation of a new doctor (and a new parent) is far messier, far more uncertain, and far more gratifying than one could ever expect.

Get 35% OFF

Click here for more information about This Won't Hurt a Bit: (And Other White Lies): My Education in Medicine and Motherhood

Read More...

Doctors Talking with Patients/Patients Talking with Doctors: Improving Communication in Medical Visits Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This is a book about communication between physicians and patients in the medical interaction. What I love most about this book is that it is completely based on research (much of which was conducted by the authors). It is a fascinating look at what factors are related to the quality of interactions (such as patient and physician's gender and age), as well as the effects of physician-patient interactions on patient health and satisfaction. I recommend this book for anyone who is interested in this aspect of healthcare communication.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Doctors Talking with Patients/Patients Talking with Doctors: Improving Communication in Medical Visits

Click here for more information about Doctors Talking with Patients/Patients Talking with Doctors: Improving Communication in Medical Visits

Read More...

Forgive and Remember: Managing Medical Failure Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)As a medical student at the University of Chicago, Forgive and Remember helped shape my view of what good, caring physicians need to do when policing their own. I am currently on the quality assurance committees at three hospitals where I practice. I am buying several copies of Forgive and Remember for my committee colleagues who have not read this book.
The temptations of money over our patient's best interest, the medical malpractice environment, and the difficulties of practicing medicine in the era of managed care have made it diffuclt for well intentioned physicians to make a difference in the quality of care provided in our communities. I think this book will help me and my colleagues fufill the responsibilities the hospitals and our commununities have given us.
I truly believe all health care providers, attorneys involved with medical malpractice cases, and people interested in the delivery of healthcare need to read this book. It brings into perspective how all health care providers, from surgeons to orderlies, are human and make mistakes. It also shows how some mistakes are hard to forgive. As physicians we have to take this into account while assuring we always keep the interest of all patients, our own and those of other physicians, are well looked after.
I hope that in my local community all people will trust that their health care providers, despite the outcome of their care, did a good, competent job. Everyone alive, including physicians and our families, will someday become a patient.
In life it is important for all of us to learn from our mistakes.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Forgive and Remember: Managing Medical Failure

On its initial publication, Forgive and Remember emerged as the definitive study of the training and lives of young surgeons. Now with an extensive new preface, epilogue, and appendix by the author, reflecting on the changes that have taken place since the book's original publication, this updated second edition of Charles L. Bosk's classic study is as timely as ever.

Click here for more information about Forgive and Remember: Managing Medical Failure

Read More...

Caring for Patients: A Critique of the Medical Model Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Primary care practitioners who wish to be better at understanding their patients' emotional engines and how these interact with physical complaints will love this book.
The late Dr Barbour worked as a consulting internist at Stanford Medical Center. Sometimes the solution to his patient's problem lay in a medical diagnosis no one else had considered, or it might lie in an emotional granny-knot undiscovered or unresolved. This book discusses the latter.
Dr Barbour details the clues people give, the phrases that open up their thoughts, and the techniques he uses in various defined situations. The man clearly has a subtle and deep understanding of human psychology, but his book reads more like a mechanic's manual. For this I thank him profusely, because while primary care requires an understanding of physiology, psychiatry, all kinds of theories, etc, our patients benefit only from our actions. This book cries out to have its methods put into practice, and is written to make that possible.
If I ever have to cull my medical library, this will be one of the last to go.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Caring for Patients: A Critique of the Medical Model

An experienced and compassionate physician questions the prevailing medical model of patient care--that every illness has a physical cause that can be identified and treated medically—and argues for the necessity of taking the psychological and social situation of the patient into account in the process of diagnosis and treatment.

Click here for more information about Caring for Patients: A Critique of the Medical Model

Read More...

A Not Entirely Benign Procedure Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I am a biology major/ pre-med student at UCLA, though it is through my English class that I found this book. Simply put, this novel made me think. I continuously wondered, "can i handle 'dog dissection'... will I be able to memorize all of the countless facts about all these rare diseases?" An entire section of the book is devoted to bioethical issues, including one essay entitled, "DNR," (do not resuscitate). I began questioning myself, "is it fair to bring someone back just so that they can suffer longer with the same disease?" If you plan on going to medical school, reading this book is a must, and a joy; it is perfect for pre-meds.

Click Here to see more reviews about: A Not Entirely Benign Procedure

Click here for more information about A Not Entirely Benign Procedure

Read More...

Healing Dramas and Clinical Plots: The Narrative Structure of Experience (Cambridge Studies in Medical Anthropology) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I had polio in 1947. Subsequently, I spent years in physical therapy and medical community services. This is a book clearly written by an author who has very little experience in the area of physical suffering or disability. Yet her clear and precise understanding of what denigrates and also what boosts the morale of patients dealing with severe trauma shines forth. I applaud this effort. The constant push toward compassion found in her book and the call to carefully listen to the stories of individual patients astounds someone like me who grew up in the confines of a rather harsh and unfeeling medical community where listening to the patient was unheard of. This is for me a glorious breakthrough. And yet, the most crucial and pivotal assistance ever imparted in my estimation is a spiritual understanding of how we come to terms with faith in our Maker and God during times of tragedy and loss. Personally, I don't know how anyone survives severe disability apart from the grace and compassion of the Almighty Who can and will enter into our place of suffering and bestow spiritual strength to press on. Learning that God is a very present Help in trouble enables and fosters triumph in times of darkness.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Healing Dramas and Clinical Plots: The Narrative Structure of Experience (Cambridge Studies in Medical Anthropology)

There is growing interest in "therapeutic narratives" and the relation between narrative and healing. Cheryl Mattingly's ethnography of the practice of occupational therapy in a North American hospital investigates the complex interconnections between narrative and experience in clinical work. Viewing the world of disability as a socially constructed experience, it presents fascinatingly detailed case studies of clinical interactions between occupational therapists and patients, many of them severely injured and disabled, and illustrates the diverse ways in which an ordinary clinical interchange is transformed into a dramatic experience governed by a narrative plot. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including anthropological studies of narrative and ritual, literary theory, phenomenology and hermeneutics, this book develops a narrative theory of social action and experience. While most contemporary theories of narrative presume that narratives impose an artificial coherence upon lived experience, Mattingly argues for a revision of the classic mimetic position. If narrative offers a correspondence to lived experience, she contends, the dominant formal feature which connects the two is not narrative coherence but narrative drama. Moving and sophisticated, this book is an innovative contribution to the study of modern institutions and to anthropological theory.

Click here for more information about Healing Dramas and Clinical Plots: The Narrative Structure of Experience (Cambridge Studies in Medical Anthropology)

Read More...

Diagnosis Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Every patient would love a look inside her physician's head to glimpse that meticulous moment-to-moment process that yields a great--even life-saving--diagnosis. That's exactly what EVERY PATIENT TELLS A STORY does. Bless Dr. Sanders for having the heart, wisdom and eloquence to lay open the M.D. brain for all of us nervous lay people who, at those moments of health crisis, can only pray we've picked a good doc.
It turns out that the things we patients secretly crave from our doctors--eye contact, focused conversation, LISTENING, the reassuring touch of the physician's educated hands on our painful abdomens or dislocated shoulders--are also the most vital tools of a truly great diagnostician. Of course we're grateful for medical technology, but as Dr. Sanders so brilliantly argues, these technical advancements work best when physicians' own powers of observation--and yes, intuition--are also fully engaged.
The last chapter is a dramatic departure from the rest of the book. Here Dr. Sanders tells us a very personal diagnosis story, one involving the untimely death of her younger sister. The gift of such an intimate conclusion reminds the reader of the humane impulse that so clearly motivated its author on every preceding page.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Diagnosis

Click here for more information about Diagnosis

Read More...

A Call to Action Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)In "A Call to Action" Pfizer chairman Hank McKinnell makes the observation that the US has a "sick care" system, not a health care system. While the entitites working within this system may be the best at what they do, the lack of a true health care system will continue to impose a growing financial, social, and quality-of-life burden on all. Additionally, the health issues facing the world, such as the HIV/AIDS pandemic, are bigger than any one organization can handle.
Through provocative observations and insightful questions, McKinnell creates a framework for the discussion of this crucial issue. The solution can not lie solely upon private enterprise, governments, NGOs, or individuals, but must be achieved through the concerted efforts of all parties, both public and private. The questions raised in this book provide a necessary framework to both get the dialogue going as well as to organize what may otherwise be considered an overwhelming task. Importantly, this industry veteran shows that there is reason to believe the goal is achievable.
Our healthcare system has profound effects throughout every fiber of our society, from the way we live our lives to the taxes we pay to the role of government in providing for a healthful place in which to pursue our dreams. As such, it is important for all concerned citizens to understand the challenges facing the establishment and maintenance of a true health care system.
"A Call to Action" is a surprising, thought-provoking, and ultimately hopeful challenge to establish a true and sustainable health care system. I strongly recommend this to anyone interested in one of the biggest issues facing the US both today and in the future.

Click Here to see more reviews about: A Call to Action

Click here for more information about A Call to Action

Read More...