Best of
Medical
2017
With the End in Mind: Dying, Death, and Wisdom in an Age of Denial
Kathryn Mannix - 2017
Kathryn Mannix has studied and practiced palliative care for thirty years. In With the End in Mind , she shares beautifully crafted stories from a lifetime of caring for the dying, and makes a case for the therapeutic power of approaching death not with trepidation, but with openness, clarity, and understanding. Weaving the details of her own experiences as a caregiver through stories of her patients, their families, and their distinctive lives, Dr. Mannix discusses the universal, but deeply personal, process of dying. With meditations on life, death, and the space between them, With the End in Mind describes the possibility of meeting death gently, with forethought and preparation, and shows the unexpected beauty, dignity, and profound humanity of life coming to an end.
This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor
Adam Kay - 2017
Hilarious, horrifying and heartbreaking, this diary is everything you wanted to know – and more than a few things you didn't – about life on and off the hospital ward.
As seen on ITV's Zoe Ball Book Club
This edition includes extra diary entries and a new afterword by the author.
In Shock: My Journey from Death to Recovery and the Redemptive Power of Hope
Rana Awdish - 2017
Rana Awdish never imagined that an emergency trip to the hospital would result in hemorrhaging nearly all of her blood volume and losing her unborn first child. But after her first visit, Dr. Awdish spent months fighting for her life, enduring consecutive major surgeries and experiencing multiple overlapping organ failures. At each step of the recovery process, Awdish was faced with something even more unexpected: repeated cavalier behavior from her fellow physicians—indifference following human loss, disregard for anguish and suffering, and an exacting emotional distance.Hauntingly perceptive and beautifully written, In Shock allows the reader to transform alongside Awidsh and watch what she discovers in our carefully-cultivated, yet often misguided, standard of care. Awdish comes to understand the fatal flaws in her profession and in her own past actions as a physician while achieving, through unflinching presence, a crystalline vision of a new and better possibility for us all.As Dr. Awdish finds herself up against the same self-protective partitions she was trained to construct as a medical student and physician, she artfully illuminates the dysfunction of disconnection. Shatteringly personal, and yet wholly universal, she offers a brave road map for anyone navigating illness while presenting physicians with a new paradigm and rationale for embracing the emotional bond between doctor and patient.
An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back
Elisabeth Rosenthal - 2017
In only a few decades, the medical system has been overrun by organizations seeking to exploit for profit the trust that vulnerable and sick Americans place in their healthcare. Our politicians have proven themselves either unwilling or incapable of reining in the increasingly outrageous costs faced by patients, and market-based solutions only seem to funnel larger and larger sums of our money into the hands of corporations. Impossibly high insurance premiums and inexplicably large bills have become facts of life; fatalism has set in. Very quickly Americans have been made to accept paying more for less. How did things get so bad so fast?Breaking down this monolithic business into the individual industries--the hospitals, doctors, insurance companies, and drug manufacturers--that together constitute our healthcare system, Rosenthal exposes the recent evolution of American medicine as never before. How did healthcare, the caring endeavor, become healthcare, the highly profitable industry? Hospital systems, which are managed by business executives, behave like predatory lenders, hounding patients and seizing their homes. Research charities are in bed with big pharmaceutical companies, which surreptitiously profit from the donations made by working people. Patients receive bills in code, from entrepreneurial doctors they never even saw.The system is in tatters, but we can fight back. Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal doesn't just explain the symptoms, she diagnoses and treats the disease itself. In clear and practical terms, she spells out exactly how to decode medical doublespeak, avoid the pitfalls of the pharmaceuticals racket, and get the care you and your family deserve. She takes you inside the doctor-patient relationship and to hospital C-suites, explaining step-by-step the workings of a system badly lacking transparency. This is about what we can do, as individual patients, both to navigate the maze that is American healthcare and also to demand far-reaching reform. An American Sickness is the frontline defense against a healthcare system that no longer has our well-being at heart.
Fragile Lives: A Heart Surgeon’s Stories of Life and Death on the Operating Table
Stephen Westaby - 2017
A slip of the hand and life ebbs away.The balance between life and death is so delicate, and the heart surgeon walks that rope between the two. In the operating room there is no time for doubt. It is flesh, blood, rib-retractors and pumping the vital organ with your bare hand to squeeze the life back into it. An off-day can have dire consequences – this job has a steep learning curve, and the cost is measured in human life. Cardiac surgery is not for the faint of heart.Professor Stephen Westaby took chances and pushed the boundaries of heart surgery. He saved hundreds of lives over the course of a thirty-five year career and now, in his astounding memoir, Westaby details some of his most remarkable and poignant cases – such as the baby who had suffered multiple heart attacks by six months old, a woman who lived the nightmare of locked-in syndrome, and a man whose life was powered by a battery for eight years.A powerful, important and incredibly moving book, Fragile Lives offers an exceptional insight into the exhilarating and sometimes tragic world of heart surgery, and how it feels to hold someone’s life in your hands.
The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine
Lindsey Fitzharris - 2017
She conjures up early operating theaters--no place for the squeamish--and surgeons, working before anesthesia, who were lauded for their speed and brute strength. These medical pioneers knew that the aftermath of surgery was often more dangerous than their patients' afflictions, and they were baffled by the persistent infections that kept mortality rates stubbornly high. At a time when surgery couldn't have been more hazardous, an unlikely figure stepped forward: a young, melancholy Quaker surgeon named Joseph Lister, who would solve the deadly riddle and change the course of history.Fitzharris dramatically recounts Lister's discoveries in gripping detail, culminating in his audacious claim that germs were the source of all infection--and could be countered by antiseptics. Focusing on the tumultuous period from 1850 to 1875, she introduces us to Lister and his contemporaries--some of them brilliant, some outright criminal--and takes us through the grimy medical schools and dreary hospitals where they learned their art, the deadhouses where they studied anatomy, and the graveyards they occasionally ransacked for cadavers.Eerie and illuminating, The Butchering Art celebrates the triumph of a visionary surgeon whose quest to unite science and medicine delivered us into the modern world.
Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs
Michael T. Osterholm - 2017
And as outbreaks of COVID-19, Ebola, MERS, and Zika have demonstrated, we are woefully underprepared to deal with the fallout. So what can -- and must -- we do in order to protect ourselves from mankind's deadliest enemy?Drawing on the latest medical science, case studies, policy research, and hard-earned epidemiological lessons, Deadliest Enemy explores the resources and programs we need to develop if we are to keep ourselves safe from infectious disease. The authors show how we could wake up to a reality in which many antibiotics no longer cure, bioterror is a certainty, and the threat of a disastrous influenza or coronavirus pandemic looms ever larger. Only by understanding the challenges we face can we prevent the unthinkable from becoming the inevitable.Deadliest Enemy is high scientific drama, a chronicle of medical mystery and discovery, a reality check, and a practical plan of action.
Lies My Doctor Told Me: Medical Myths That Can Harm Your Health
Ken D. Berry - 2017
If you've been misled by bad medical advice your health will suffer. It is time you discover the truth. Medical research is expanding so quickly that only the most dedicated doctors can keep up with it all. Is your doctor that dedicated? Lies My Doctor Told Me reveals the truth behind the lies told by well-meaning doctors. Whether it's recommending a low-fat diet, or warning you to avoid the sun, these medical lies can cause really harm to your health. Does your doctor still recommend that you avoid cholesterol and eat lots of whole-grains? What about a paleo diet or ketogenic diet, have they been mentioned in an office visit? So much of the nutrition and lifestyle advice doctors give is just plain wrong, and that can be dangerous. This book will help you sort through the medical myths and the outright lies, and begin to develop a health partnership with your doctor. This book will teach you: --the truth about whole wheat's effect on the human body --whether milk is good for you --the facts about fat intake on your heart health --how the Food Pyramid came into existence --the dangers and benefits of hormone therapy --the truth about salt --how doctors think about prevention and nutrition --much more Order LIES MY DOCTOR TOLD ME today, as your first step towards a better diet, better health, and a better relationship with your doctor.
Get Well Soon: History's Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them
Jennifer Wright - 2017
Some of their responses to those outbreaks are almost too strange to believe in hindsight. Get Well Soon delivers the gruesome, morbid details of some of the worst plagues we’ve suffered as a species, as well as stories of the heroic figures who selflessly fought to ease the suffering of their fellow man. With her signature mix of in-depth research and storytelling, and not a little dark humor, Jennifer Wright explores history’s most gripping and deadly outbreaks, and ultimately looks at the surprising ways they’ve shaped history and humanity for almost as long as anyone can remember.
THE WATCHERS: 6 Military Romance Bundle
Kristina Weaver - 2017
More than 300,000 words. Approximately 1,000 pages. NO CLIFFHANGERS. VERY STEAMY. You've been warned :) Titles in this series: Seducing the Storm I’m a soldier. I’m a hard man. I don’t do love and I don’t do cute but the moment I meet Lenny Coleman that is exactly what I get. The little doctor is a mess, a walking disaster and also my wet dream come to life. I should walk away and tell one of my men to protect the little doctor from the danger dogging her, but when Lenny makes me a proposition I can’t refuse and I finally get my hands on her…well the only taste I want more than my freedom is the good doctor, in my bed. Forever. Bringing down Jericho When someone shoots my house up and tries to hurt me I find that one hot bad boy with a grin so hot he scorches my drawers, is exactly what I need. Seems I’ve brought down the walls of Jericho and the man may just be exactly what my god girl heart desires. Flirting with Fire Blaze Peters is my brother’s best friend, a surly brute and possibly one of the sexiest men I have ever seen. When Jericho, my big bad brother, gets a bug up his butt about one small burglary and tiny murder attempt…I find Blaze on my doorstep and a whole lot of heat that won’t be satisfied unless I convince the big sexy soldier that resisting temptation is the last thing he wants to do. Landing King My name is Brett King. I don’t want a woman more than one night, maybe two if she gets the message that commitment ain’t happening. That’s how I live and I am more than happy to keep it that way. Until Kinsley Jacobs show up on my doorstep, the one woman who made me want more than one night. All Shook Up When a friend called and asked me to protect one of his employees, I thought this job would be a cake walk. I’d go in, find the person responsible for scaring Rosetta Mayhew and move on to my carefree existence and quick flings. What I get instead is a female Elvis impersonator and one night that permanently alters my very soul. Owning Trace Trace Matthews storms back into my life on a golden chariot and expects me to just forgive and forget the past? The man abandoned me years ago and broke my heart into jagged pieces that still make me bleed.
Ghost Heart
Lisa Harris - 2017
A rogue organ broker. A ghost child. And the legend that could destroy them all. A brutal murder convinces surgeon Mia Kendall there’s more than she imagined to the mysterious spike in heart transplant rejections. Determined to find answers before she loses another patient, Mia gets sucked into a dangerous international medical web. With time running out for her youngest transplant recipient, Mia is forced to partner with a disillusioned ex-military pilot who flies brokered organs across East Africa. But searching for the truth will prove costly for the unlikely duo racing to stop a madman before he annihilates a rare and cursed bloodline. From best-selling author Lisa Harris and award-winning author Lynne Gentry comes a chilling, hypnotic medical thriller that will take you from the suburbs of Cincinnati to the jungles of Africa.
The End of Alzheimer's: The First Program to Prevent and Reverse Cognitive Decline
Dale E. Bredesen - 2017
Revealing that AD is not one condition, as it is currently treated, but three, The End of Alzheimer's outlines 36 metabolic factors (micronutrients, hormone levels, sleep) that can trigger "downsizing" in the brain. The protocol shows us how to rebalance these factors using lifestyle modifications like taking B12, eliminating gluten, or improving oral hygiene.The results are impressive. Of the first ten patients on the protocol, nine displayed significant improvement with 3-6 months; since then the protocol has yielded similar results with hundreds more. Now, The End of Alzheimer's brings new hope to a broad audience of patients, caregivers, physicians, and treatment centers with a fascinating look inside the science and a complete step-by-step plan that fundamentally changes how we treat and even think about AD.
People of the ER
Philip Allen Green - 2017
Stories that are told and retold, sometimes just until the end of the shift, but sometimes for decades. A survivor of domestic violence makes it to the hospital but cannot trust anyone. An anonymous man passes away after being taken to the emergency room, and no one can identify him. The spouse of a cancer patient must decide whether to force her to undergo chemotherapy or to let her pass away in peace. These stories—and all the rest in People of the ER—grapple with what it means to be human in the face of trauma and death. Written by the author of Trauma Room Two, People of the ER, delves deeper into the lives of the patients and staff that work in a small, rural emergency room. Includes previously published short stories Jocelyn and Sutures.
Extreme Measures: Finding a Better Path to the End of Life
Jessica Nutik Zitter - 2017
She elected to specialize in critical care--to become an ICU physician--and imagined herself swooping in to rescue patients from the brink of death. But then during her first code she found herself cracking the ribs of a patient so old and frail it was unimaginable he would ever come back to life. She began to question her choice. Extreme Measures charts Zitter's journey from wanting to be one kind of hero to becoming another--a doctor who prioritizes the patient's values and preferences in an environment where the default choice is the extreme use of technology. In our current medical culture, the old and the ill are put on what she terms the End-of-Life Conveyor belt. They are intubated, catheterized, and even shelved away in care facilities to suffer their final days alone, confused, and often in pain. In her work Zitter has learned what patients fear more than death itself: the prospect of dying badly. She builds bridges between patients and caregivers, formulates plans to allay patients' pain and anxiety, and enlists the support of loved ones so that life can end well, even beautifully.
Into the Gray Zone: A Neuroscientist Explores the Border Between Life and Death
Adrian Owen - 2017
People in this middle place have sustained traumatic brain injuries or are the victims of stroke or degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Many are oblivious to the outside world, and their doctors believe they are incapable of thought. But a sizeable number are experiencing something different: intact minds adrift deep within damaged brains and bodies. Following Owen’s journey of exciting medical discovery, Into the Gray Zone asks some tough and terrifying questions, such as: What is life like for these patients? What can their families and friends do to help them? What are the ethical implications for religious organizations, politicians, the Right to Die movement, and even insurers? And perhaps most intriguing of all: in defining what a life worth living is, are we too concerned with the physical and not giving enough emphasis to the power of thought? What, truly, defines a satisfying life?
Taking Turns: Stories from HIV/AIDS Care Unit 371
M.K. Czerwiec - 2017
Taking Turns pulls back the curtain on life in the ward.A shining example of excellence in the treatment and care of patients, Unit 371 was a community for thousands of patients and families affected by HIV and AIDS and the people who cared for them. This graphic novel combines Czerwiec’s memories with the oral histories of patients, family members, and staff. It depicts life and death in the ward, the ways the unit affected and informed those who passed through it, and how many look back on their time there today. Czerwiec joined Unit 371 at a pivotal time in the history of AIDS: deaths from the syndrome in the Midwest peaked in 1995 and then dropped drastically in the following years, with the release of antiretroviral protease inhibitors. This positive turn of events led to a decline in patient populations and, ultimately, to the closure of Unit 371. Czerwiec’s restrained, inviting drawing style and carefully considered narrative examine individual, institutional, and community responses to the AIDS epidemic—as well as the role that art can play in the grieving process.Deeply personal yet made up of many voices, this history of daily life in a unique AIDS care unit is an open, honest look at suffering, grief, and hope among a community of medical professionals and patients at the heart of the epidemic.
The Boy In 7 Billion: A True Story of Love, Courage and Hope
Callie Blackwell - 2017
A powerful true story revealing a remarkable relationship between a dying son - and a mother that refuses to let him go. At the age of 10, Deryn was diagnosed with Leukaemia. Then 18 months later he developed another rare form of cancer called Langerhan’s cell sarcoma. Only five other people in the world have it. He is the youngest of them all and the only person in the world known to be fighting it alongside another cancer, making him one in seven billion. Told there was no hope of survival, after four years of intensive treatment, exhausted by his fight and with just days left to live, Deryn planned his own funeral. But, Deryn’s desperate mother, Callie would not let him give in. Battling medical errors, impossible odds and years of hardship as the cancer consumed his body and their world, they looked for more answers. After making some startling discoveries and taking massive chances - something began to change… Would their lives as a family ever be the same again?
Dare to Dream: My Struggle to Become a Mum – A Story of Heartache and Hope
Izzy Judd - 2017
But the months started to tick by, with each one ending in disappointment and frustration. And then the inevitable panic started to set in ...'Having been told by doctors that, due to Izzy's polycystic ovarian syndrome, they would have difficulty conceiving - and after two years of trying - Izzy and Harry turned to IVF. Izzy's aim, drawing on her own experience, is to break through some of the taboos surrounding miscarriage, IVF and fertility issues. This brutally honest and deeply personal account will acknowledge the struggles that so many couples go through but will ultimately focus on the positive, life-changing and remarkable results that IVF can yield. One in seven couples in the UK have difficulty conceiving and although many babies are now born through IVF, there is still a sense of awkwardness around the subject. Izzy hopes that this book will be a companion to those going through similar challenges to those she has experienced. As she herself says, 'No couple should have to go through it alone and in silence.'
Your Heart Is the Size of Your Fist: A Doctor Reflects on Ten Years at a Refugee Clinic
Martina Scholtens - 2017
A Congolese woman refuses antiretroviral treatment for her new HIV diagnosis, and instead places her trust in Jesus. Two conservative Muslim Iraqi women are inadvertently exposed to pornography when a doctor uses Google Images to supplement a medical discussion. By turns humorous, distressing, and moving, these stories offer insight into the people seeking a new life while navigating poverty, language barriers, and neighbours who aren’t always friendly.This riveting collection of true stories from Dr. Martina Scholtens is filled with hope and humour, and together make up a deeply moving portrait of how one doctor attempts to provide quality care and advocacy for patients while remaining culturally sensitive, even as she wrestles with guilt, awareness of her own privilege, the faith she was raised with, and vicarious trauma after hearing countless stories of brutality and suffering.In the spirit of Louise Aronson and Atul Gawande, Scholtens’ writing is based on her personal experiences and explores the transformative moments in which a clinical doctor-patient relationship becomes a profound human-human connection.
Cowboys and Indian: A Doctor's First Year In Texas
Sandip V. Mathur - 2017
Whether inserting a breathing tube or spinal needle, delivering electric shocks, searching for cancer on X-rays or telling stories to his two young daughters at night, Dr. Mathur's heartwarming and occasionally hilarious stories depict human relationships at many levels. The new doctor on the prairie is also a husband, a father, a neighbor, and an immigrant. The first year of practice is critical for all doctors, rocked by anxiety and fear. The love and support of family and patients makes it possible to persevere and overcome these challenges. These stories portray a doctor's life at its best and its worst, and show the personal toll of practicing medicine as well as the many rewards of working in an underserved hospital. This biography reveals that, though medicine is indeed demanding and difficult, a little humor, compassion, and humility makes it fulfilling and inspiring.
The Alzheimer's Solution: A Breakthrough Program to Prevent and Reverse the Symptoms of Cognitive Decline at Every Age
Dean Sherzai - 2017
While all other major diseases are in decline, deaths from Alzheimer’s have increased radically. What you or your loved ones don’t yet know is that 90 percent of Alzheimer’s cases can be prevented.Based on the largest clinical and observational study to date, neurologists and codirectors of the Brain Health and Alzheimer’s Prevention Program at Loma Linda University Medical Center, Drs. Dean and Ayesha Sherzai, offer in The Alzheimer’s Solution the first comprehensive program for preventing Alzheimer’s disease and improving cognitive function. Alzheimer’s disease isn’t a genetic inevitability, and a diagnosis does not need to come with a death sentence. Ninety percent of grandparents, parents, husbands, and wives can be spared. Ninety percent of us can avoid ever getting Alzheimer’s, and for the 10 percent with strong genetic risk for cognitive decline, the disease can be delayed by ten to fifteen years. This isn’t an estimate or wishful thinking; it’s a percentage based on rigorous science and the remarkable results the Sherzais have seen firsthand in their clinic.This much-needed revolutionary book reveals how the brain is a living universe, directly influenced by nutrition, exercise, stress, sleep, and engagement. In other words: what you feed it, how you treat it, when you challenge it, and the ways in which you allow it to rest. These factors are the pillars of the groundbreaking program you’ll find in these pages, which features a personalized assessment for evaluating risk, a five-part program for prevention and symptom-reversal, and day-by-day guides for optimizing cognitive function. You can prevent Alzheimer’s disease from affecting you, your family, friends, and loved ones. Even with a diagnosis, you can reverse cognitive decline and add vibrant years to your life. The future of your brain is finally within your control.
The Drug Hunters: The Improbable Quest to Discover New Medicines
Donald R. Kirsch - 2017
Through serendipity— by chewing, brewing, and snorting—some Neolithic souls discovered opium, alcohol, snakeroot, juniper, frankincense, and other helpful substances. Ötzi the Iceman, the five-thousand-year-old hunter frozen in the Italian Alps, was found to have whipworms in his intestines and Bronze-age medicine, a worm-killing birch fungus, knotted to his leggings. Nowadays, Big Pharma conglomerates spend billions of dollars on state-of the art laboratories staffed by PhDs to discover blockbuster drugs. Yet, despite our best efforts to engineer cures, luck, trial-and-error, risk, and ingenuity are still fundamental to medical discovery.The Drug Hunters is a colorful, fact-filled narrative history of the search for new medicines from our Neolithic forebears to the professionals of today, and from quinine and aspirin to Viagra, Prozac, and Lipitor. The chapters offer a lively tour of how new drugs are actually found, the discovery strategies, the mistakes, and the rare successes. Dr. Donald R. Kirsch infuses the book with his own expertise and experiences from thirty-five years of drug hunting, whether searching for life-saving molecules in mudflats by Chesapeake Bay or as a chief science officer and research group leader at major pharmaceutical companies.
The Cause of Death: True Stories of Death and Murder From a New Zealand Pathologist
Cynric Temple-Camp - 2017
Spontaneous combustion and exhumation, drug mules and devil worshippers, a gruesome killing beneath the Palmerston North Airport control tower, a mysterious death in a historic homestead, a first-hand dissection of the infamous Mark Lundy case...In The Cause of Death, provincial pathologist Dr Cynric Temple-Camp lifts the lid on the most unusual stories of death and murder he's encountered during his 30-year career.
The Encore: A Memoir in Three Acts
Charity Tillemann-Dick - 2017
Inexplicably, despite her fatal pulmonary condition, she could still sing. Medical experts advised Charity to abandon her musical dreams, but if her time was running out, she wanted to spend it doing what she loved.In just three years, she endured two double lung transplants. Teetering between life and death, she slowly learned to breathe, walk, talk, eat, and sing again. With new lungs and fierce determination, she eventually fell in love, rebuilt her career, and reclaimed her life. Over a decade after her diagnosis, she has a chart-topping album, performs around the globe, and is a leading voice for organ donation.Weaving Charity’s extraordinary tale of triumph with those of opera's greatest heroines, The Encore illuminates the indomitable human spirit. It's the story of confronting devastating challenges with love: the intimate love of a mother for her daughter, a man for a woman, a doctor for her craft, and a singer for her music. Ultimately, grace from God and strangers enabled the work of love to save one young woman's breath and allowed her to reclaim her life.
Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology
Deirdre Cooper Owens - 2017
It is also no secret that these nineteenth-century gynecologists performed experimental caesarean sections, ovariotomies, and obstetric fistula repairs primarily on poor and powerless women. Medical Bondage breaks new ground by exploring how and why physicians denied these women their full humanity yet valued them as "medical superbodies" highly suited for medical experimentation.In Medical Bondage, Cooper Owens examines a wide range of scientific literature and less formal communications in which gynecologists created and disseminated medical fictions about their patients, such as their belief that black enslaved women could withstand pain better than white "ladies." Even as they were advancing medicine, these doctors were legitimizing, for decades to come, groundless theories related to whiteness and blackness, men and women, and the inferiority of other races or nationalities. Medical Bondage moves between southern plantations and northern urban centers to reveal how nineteenth-century American ideas about race, health, and status influenced doctor-patient relationships in sites of healing like slave cabins, medical colleges, and hospitals. It also retells the story of black enslaved women and of Irish immigrant women from the perspective of these exploited groups and thus restores for us a picture of their lives.
Flesh and Blood: A History of My Family in Seven Maladies
Stephen McGann - 2017
His ancestors settled in poverty-rife Victorian Liverpool, working to survive and thrive. Some of them became soldiers serving on the Western Front. One would be the last man to step off the SS Titanic as it sank beneath the icy waves. He would testify at the inquest. This is their story.Flesh and Blood is the story of the McGann family as told through seven maladies – diseases, wounds or ailments that have afflicted Stephen’s relatives over the last century and a half, and which have helped mould him into what he now perceives himself to be. It’s the story of how health, or the lack of it, fuels our collective will and informs our personal narrative. Health is the motivational antagonist in the drama of our life story – circumscribing the extent of our actions, the quality of our character and the breadth of our ambition. Our maladies are the scribes that write the restless and mutating genome of our self-identity.Flesh and Blood combines McGann’s passion for genealogy with an academic interest in the social dimensions of medicine – and fuses these with a lifelong exploration of drama as a way to understand what motivates human beings to do the things they do. He looks back at scenes from his own life that were moulded by medical malady, and traces the crooked roots of each affliction through the lives of his ancestors, whose grim maladies punctuate the public documents or military records of his family tree. In this way he asks a simple, searching question: how have these maladies helped to shape the story of the person he is today? Hear Stephen’s incredible story told in his own words in this magnificent unabridged audiobook.
Not Your Average Nurse: From 1970s London to Outback Australia, the True Story of an Unlikely Girl and an Extraordinary Career
Maggie Groff - 2017
So when Maggie Groff embarks as a student nurse at London's King's College Hospital she must quickly get to grips with the demands of her chosen career. It's sink or swim.We follow Maggie's highs and lows as she becomes a highly skilled nurse and sets sail for a new life in Australia.From the watchful gaze of stern ward sisters and the ordeals of nursing at a poor housing estate to becoming an industrial nurse at the iconic Sydney Opera House, Maggie shares her stories of mistakes and mayhem, tea and sympathy, and the life-affirming moments that make it all worthwhile.
In Pursuit of Memory: The Fight Against Alzheimer's
Joseph Jebelli - 2017
And as our population ages, scientists are working against the clock to find a cure.Neuroscientist Joseph Jebelli is among them. His beloved grandfather had Alzheimer's and now he's written the book he needed then -- a very human history of this frightening disease. But In Pursuit of Memory is also a thrilling scientific detective story that takes you behind the headlines. Jebelli's quest takes us from nineteenth-century Germany and post-war England, to the jungles of Papua New Guinea and the technological proving grounds of Japan; through America, India, China, Iceland, Sweden, and Colombia. Its heroes are scientists from around the world -- many of whom he's worked with -- and the brave patients and families who have changed the way that researchers think about the disease.This compelling insider's account shows vividly why Jebelli feels so hopeful about a cure, but also why our best defense in the meantime is to understand the disease. In Pursuit of Memory is a clever, moving, eye-opening guide to the threat one in three of us faces now.
The Inheritance: A Family on the Front Lines of the Battle Against Alzheimer's Disease
Niki Kapsambelis - 2017
Of the top ten killers, it is the only disease for which there is no cure or treatment. For most people, there is nothing that they can do to fight back. But one family is doing all they can. The DeMoe family has the most devastating form of the disease that there is: early onset Alzheimer’s, an inherited genetic mutation that causes the disease in 100 percent of cases, and has a 50 percent chance of being passed onto the next generation. Of the six DeMoe children whose father had it, five have inherited the gene; the sixth, Karla, has inherited responsibility for all of them. But rather than give up in the face of such news, the DeMoes have agreed to spend their precious, abbreviated years as part of a worldwide study that could utterly change the landscape of Alzheimer’s research and offers the brightest hope for future treatments—and possibly a cure. Drawing from several years of in-depth research with this charming and upbeat family, journalist Niki Kapsambelis tells the story of Alzheimer’s through the humanizing lens of these ordinary people made extraordinary by both their terrible circumstances and their bravery. Their tale is intertwined with the dramatic narrative history of the disease, the cutting-edge research that brings us ever closer to a possible cure, and the accounts of the extraordinary doctors spearheading these groundbreaking studies. From the oil fields of North Dakota to the jungles of Colombia, this incredible narrative redefines courage in the face of one of the most pervasive and mysterious pandemics of our time.
My Glory Was I Had Such Friends
Amy Silverstein - 2017
If she wanted to live, she had to take on the grueling quest for a new heart—immediately.A shot at survival meant uprooting her life and moving across the country to California. When her friends heard of her plans, there was only one reaction: “I’m there.” Nine remarkable women—Joy, Jill, Leja, Jody, Lauren, Robin, Valerie, Ann, and Jane—put demanding jobs and pressing family obligations on hold to fly across the country and be by Amy’s side. Creating a calendar spreadsheet, the women—some of them strangers to one another—passed the baton of friendship, one to the next, and headed straight and strong into the battle to help save Amy’s life.Empowered by the kind of empathy that can only grow with age, these women, each knowing Amy from different stages of her life, banded together to provide her with something that medicine alone could not. Sleeping on a cot beside her bed, they rubbed her back and feet when the pain was unbearable, adorned her room with death-distracting decorations, and engaged in their “best talks ever.” They saw the true measure of their friend’s strength, and they each responded in kind.My Glory Was I Had Such Friends is a tribute to these women and the intense hours they spent together—hours of heightened emotion and self-awareness, where everything was laid bare. Candid and heartrending, this once-in-a-lifetime story of connection and empathy is a powerful reminder of the ultimate importance of “showing up” for those we love.
Slow Medicine: The Way to Healing
Victoria Sweet - 2017
Yet the remedy that economists and policymakers continue to miss is also miraculously simple. Good medicine takes more than amazing technology; it takes time—time to respond to bodies as well as data, time to arrive at the right diagnosis and the right treatment. Sweet knows this because she has learned and lived it over the course of her remarkable career. Here she relates unforgettable stories of the teachers, doctors, nurses, and patients through whom she discovered the practice of Slow Medicine, in which she has been both pioneer and inspiration. Medicine, she helps us to see, is a craft and an art as well as a science. It is relational, personal, even spiritual. To do it well requires a hard-won wisdom that no algorithm can replace—that brings together “fast” and “slow” in a truly effective, efficient, sustainable, and humane way of healing.
Angels to the Rescue: Inspirational Real-Life Stories from an ER Doctor
Robert D. Lesslie - 2017
Join first responders and ER doctors as they encounter life-or-death situations, putting their training and beliefs to the test. Be uplifted as you meet real-life angels, such as
Elton, a daring highway patrolman who risks it all to prevent disaster
James, the orthopedic tech with a God-given talent for mending hearts
Shep, a principled fire captain whose most important lesson spares one of his own
Denton, the tireless paramedic who rescues an injured man...from a hospital
Maybelle, a faithful nursery volunteer who makes a life-saving diagnosis
As you read these heart-pounding stories of faith in the face of impossible odds, you'll be reminded that a loving and merciful God appoints angels, those you can and cannot see, to watch over you and intervene on your behalf.
Hold My Beer and Watch This: Real Stories from a Small-Town ER
Kerry Hamm - 2017
Take a look at what happened when a group of bodybuilders met a scrawny man with a big mouth, try to figure out what Mr. Secret Agent was doing on the waiting room floor, and hold back your anger when you hear the tale of a hospital employee taking advantage of an elderly patient. Back with stories to make you laugh, cry, and dislike humanity, the final volume of the series is bound to keep you busy.
Waking Mathilda: A Memoir of Childhood Narcolepsy
Claire Crisp - 2017
Then came the H1N1 flu pandemic of 2009. It took only vaccine—one seemingly innocuous vaccine to Mathilda, the baby of the family—to change their lives forever. Diagnosed at age three as the world's youngest child with narcolepsy, the joyful and energetic Mathilda rapidly dissolved into someone unrecognizable. In this compelling narrative, Claire Crisp chronicles the fight for Mathilda's treatment. Leaving their family and country in England, the Crisps begin a new journey—one of faith, of loss, and of love as immigrants to the western shores of the United States.
Breathe
Beni Rusani - 2017
Adam is a cardiologist who knows how to help others.The only thing he can’t fix is himself.When a heart attack threatens his life, Adam is given a chanceto look at his past to rediscover the friendship and the love he lost.In his darkest hours, friends and strangers are racing against time to save him.Yet, the key to his survival and future might lie in his past.All Adam wants is a second chance.And, time is running out…
Surgeon's Story - Inside OR-1 With One of America's Top Pediatric Surgeons
Mark Oristano - 2017
You’ll be there as Dr. Kristine Guleserian, noted pediatric cardiothoracic surgeon, fixes the tiny hearts of the tiniest children. Follow the young boy who gets a new heart and then, three weeks later, joins Dr. Guleserian on the mound at Fenway Park to throw out the first pitch at a World Series game. Discover the years of training Dr. G went through to become the highly respected surgeon she is today. See how her warmth, humor, intelligence and dedication provide a shining example of what is good about the American health care system. To get a closer look than this, you’d have to scrub in.
Undoctored: Why Health Care Has Failed You and How You Can Become Smarter Than Your Doctor
William Davis - 2017
William Davis changed the lives of millions of people by teaching them to remove wheat from their diet to reverse years of chronic health damage. Now he'll go beyond cutting wheat to help you take charge of your own overall health in Undoctored. Dr. Davis wants you to understand that conventional medicine is no longer working in your favor. He will expose how millions of people are prescribed unnecessary medications, given dietary recommendations crafted by big business, and undergo unnecessary procedures recommended by healthcare practitioners to feed revenue-hungry healthcare systems. He then shows how the modern boom in information tools can be applied to create a comprehensive program to reduce, reverse, and cure common health issues through simple strategies, including harnessing the collective wisdom of new online technologies, so that you can break free of a health care system that puts profits over health.Undoctored is the spark of a new individually-empowered health care movement. The results of Dr. Davis' 6-week program are superior to solutions provided by the conventional healthcare system. You will be equipped to manage your own health and sidestep the misguided motives of a profit-driven medical system.
Maya Hope
Timothy Browne - 2017
A North Korean bioterrorist plot. The two collide in an unforgettable tale. Dr. Nicklaus Hart, a gifted trauma surgeon, searches for meaning in his life. His self-reliant spirit is broken with the death of his missionary best friend, found sacrificed at the base of a Maya Temple. Going to Guatemala to fill the shoes of his friend at the mission hospital, he discovers God’s redemption and peace in the smiles of the children he cares for. But his own life is in danger as he and his team stumble onto a deadly North Korean plot. As Nick delves into the mystery of his friend’s death, he exposes the very cause of the extermination of the Maya race…a virus which is about to be released upon the entire world through a bioterrorist scheme of global proportions. Will Nick and his team stop them in time?
'Tis the Season (A Collection of Reader-Submitted Medical Stories Book 8)
Kerry Hamm - 2017
These professionals have opened their hearts to submit the sad, the funny, and the 'WTF?!' stories we've all come to love and expect from the series. Included is what author Kerry Hamm calls her 'craziest, most outrageous' submission out of the entire series so far, sure to make you cringe and wonder what the heck was going through the minds of those involved. You know the drill, folks: grab a blanket, some tissues, and get ready for another wild ride!
Stem Cell Therapy: A Rising Tide: How Stem Cells Are Disrupting Medicine and Transforming Lives
Neil H. Riordan - 2017
When there aren’t enough of them, or they aren’t working properly, chronic diseases can manifest and persist. From industry leaders, sport stars, and Hollywood icons to thousands of everyday, ordinary people, stem cell therapy has helped when standard medicine failed. Many of them had lost hope. These are their stories. Neil H Riordan, author of MSC: Clinical Evidence Leading Medicine’s Next Frontier, the definitive textbook on clinical stem cell therapy, brings you an easy-to-read book about how and why stem cells work, and why they’re the wave of the future. “Neil takes readers on a riveting journey through the past, present and future of stem cell therapy. His well-researched, educational and entertaining book could change your life. I highly recommend it.” Tony Robbins, NY Times #1 Bestselling Author 100 years old will soon become the new 60. Stem cells are a key therapeutic to enable this future. Dr. Riordan’s book is your guide to why this is true and how you will benefit. A must read for anyone who cares about extending their healthy lifespan.” Peter H. Diamandis, MD; Founder, XPRIZE & Singularity University; Co-Founder, Human Longevity, Inc.; Author of NY Times Best Sellers Abundance and Bold
A Dress the Color of the Sky
Jennifer Irwin - 2017
Her marriage to cold, self-centered Nick is, not surprisingly, on the rocks. But after several dangerous experiences with strangers, Prudence finally realizes she needs therapy to stop her self-destructive behavior, and so she checks into the Serenity Hills rehab center. Prudence blames herself for her irresponsible behavior and is filled with self-loathing. She’s convinced she is completely at fault for Nick’s manipulative attitude and believes with therapy, she can return their relationship to its idyllic beginnings. However, her therapist and the other members of her rehab group see the person behind the pain. As Prudence learns more about herself and the reasons for her behavior, including startling revelations about her childhood, she begins to understand the basis for her lack of sexual self-respect. She also learns she is not entirely to blame for the failure of her marriage. With the positive reinforcement of everyone at Serenity Hills, Prudence learns not to define herself by her past. But moving forward would mean letting go of Nick for good, and Prudence isn’t sure she can.
Crooked: Outwitting the Back Pain Industry and Getting on the Road to Recovery
Cathryn Jakobson Ramin - 2017
But her discomfort only intensified, leaving her feeling frustrated and perplexed. As she searched for better solutions, she exposed a much bigger problem. Costing roughly $100 billion a year, spine medicine—often ineffective and sometimes harmful —exemplified the worst aspects of the U.S. health care system.The result of six years of intensive investigation, Crooked offers a startling look at the poorly identified risks of spine medicine, and provides practical advice and solutions. Ramin interviewed scores of spine surgeons, pain management doctors, physical medicine and rehabilitation physicians, exercise physiologists, physical therapists, chiropractors, specialized bodywork practitioners. She met with many patients whose pain and desperation led them to make life-altering decisions, and with others who triumphed over their limitations.The result is a brilliant and comprehensive book that is not only important but essential to millions of back pain sufferers, and all types of health care professionals. Ramin shatters assumptions about surgery, chiropractic methods, physical therapy, spinal injections and painkillers, and addresses evidence-based rehabilitation options—showing, in detail, how to avoid therapeutic dead ends, while saving money, time, and considerable anguish. With Crooked, she reveals what it takes to outwit the back pain industry and get on the road to recovery.
Beg, Borrow or Steal
Susie Tate - 2017
A consultant anaesthetist and the Medical Education Director – he’s a pretty big deal. So when one of his medical students falls asleep, right in the middle of a tutorial, he is furious. He’s a bloody good teacher, damn it! Maybe he could have been a little more understanding. Maybe he didn’t have to try and humiliate her. But the shock of how beautiful this particular student was when she finally opened her eyes, and his inappropriate reaction, only fuelled his anger. He’s tired of lame excuses from wild party animals burning the candle at both ends, and he’s going to make an example of this one. For Libby, pride is a luxury and beauty is currency. Pregnant at seventeen and an aspiring doctor, she couldn’t afford to be proud, so she cashed in on her looks instead. She will beg, borrow or steal to achieve her dreams and give her daughter the life she deserves, even if she has to forgo sleep – even if she has to leave her dignity behind. Only now that she’s not just sitting in lecture theatres like her first two years of medical school, now that she’s working in a real hospital, Libby is realizing that the thread she’s been hanging onto for so long may be about to snap. The last thing she needs is to have riled the gorgeous, judgmental Head of Medical Education. But there’s only so far you can push yourself, only so much pressure you can be under until you break. Libby’s been on that cliff edge for a while; her health may just tip her over. A kick in the shin from a four-year-old girl and a confrontation with her tearful, exhausted mother soon forces Jamie to see what a bastard he’s been. Libby may not accept his help, but he’s relentless when he wants something, and it’s not long before he realizes that this mother and daughter belong with him. So when a stag night he’s on ends up in the best strip club in England and he sees who the main attraction is, his reaction is explosive. Despite everything, Libby finds she still has some pride left. This man has made her feel small twice now. He won’t be getting a third shot. No matter how gorgeous he is, no matter how persistent … This book is a full-length contemporary romance of approximately 90,000 words with no cliffhanger and its own HEA.
The Matter of the Heart: A History of the Heart in Eleven Operations
Thomas Morris - 2017
And now it has been given the history it deserves’ Sunday TimesFor thousands of years the human heart remained the deepest of mysteries; both home to the soul and an organ too complex to touch, let alone operate on.Then, in the late nineteenth century, medics began going where no one had dared go before. The following decades saw the mysteries of the heart exposed, thanks to pioneering surgeons, brave patients and even sacrificial dogs.In eleven landmark operations, Thomas Morris tells us stories of triumph, reckless bravery, swaggering arrogance, jealousy and rivalry, and incredible ingenuity: the trail-blazing ‘blue baby’ procedure that transformed wheezing infants into pink, healthy children; the first human heart transplant, which made headline news around the globe. And yet the heart still feels sacred: just before the operation to fit one of the first artificial hearts, the patient’s wife asked the surgeon if he would still be able to love her.The Matter of the Heart gives us a view over the surgeon’s shoulder, showing us the heart’s inner workings and failings. It describes both a human story and a history of risk-taking that has ultimately saved millions of lives.
Unlocking Lyme: Myths, Truths, and Practical Solutions for Chronic Lyme Disease
William Rawls - 2017
Bill Rawls understands Lyme disease sufferers seeking clarity and relief because, like myself, he has experienced the pain and frustration firsthand. Through this ground-breaking book, he shares everything he has discovered on his journey to reclaiming his health... it may just be the answer you've been waiting for." – Neil Spector, MD, Author of Gone in a Heartbeat Lyme disease is one of the most puzzling illnesses on the planet. Anyone who has suffered from its debilitating symptoms knows the frustrations of trying to find a cure. Many sufferers drag themselves from one doctor or alternative practitioner to the next, getting lost in a maze of lab tests, prescription drugs, and treatments. Thousands of dollars and months (or years) later, they realize they are no better off than where they started. Unlocking Lyme puts an end to this desperate quest. Written by Dr. Bill Rawls, a physician who overcame Lyme disease himself, this book is a comprehensive, practical resource full of solutions that work. What took Dr. Rawls 10 years to learn through intense research and personal experience, you can now learn and implement in a matter of months. DR. RAWLS’ STORY Dr. Rawls was in the middle of a successful OB/GYN career when Lyme disease interrupted his life. In his struggle to overcome it, he explored every treatment option – from conventional medicine to the full range of alternative therapies. Ultimately, he embraced modern herbal therapy as his preferred solution, but he recognizes that the path may be different for each person. INSIDE THE BOOK Unlocking Lyme is the sum of Dr. Rawls’ experience, research, and practical solutions to date. The book is divided into four parts, each part addressing a critical aspect of recovery: PART 1 - Provides an overview of common misconceptions about what Lyme disease is (hint: it’s more than just a tick bite and Borrelia infection) PART 2 - Provides information on how to obtain a diagnosis, despite current limitations in diagnostic testing for Lyme PART 3 - Discusses limitations of long-term antibiotic use, and offers an overview of holistic and non-toxic therapies for healing and symptom control (including pain, depression, insomnia) PART 4 - Explains how to embrace a healthier lifestyle so you can stay well; learn how to strengthen your immune system, microbiome, and balance in your body In the years since his recovery, Dr. Rawls has helped thousands of patients find their path to healing from Lyme disease. Unlocking Lyme brings together Dr. Rawls’ accumulated knowledge and is the key you need to get your life back. TESTIMONIALS “Dr. Rawls understands the misery of chronic Lyme disease firsthand. Unlocking Lyme shares the approaches that he used to successfully recover his own health, and helps the reader understand that there is so much that can be done to regain a state of wellness and optimal health.” – Scott Forsgren Editor & Founder, BetterHealthGuy.com “Dr. Rawls has spoken on his approach to Lyme disease for the past several years; his comprehensive approach and lifestyle guidance has helped many of our members. We heartily endorse his approach to helping deal with the symptoms of Lyme and other tick-borne illnesses.” – John Dorney, President NC Lyme Disease Foundation "Unlocking Lyme delves into the science behind Lyme disease, explaining what it is, but more importantly how it can be overcome. Dr. Rawls carefully explains the various treatments for Lyme, leaving the reader feeling informed and empowered.
Frame by Frame
C.J. Murphy - 2017
She travels the U.S. as a photographer for Rider magazine. A self-proclaimed nomad, Val has little inclination to settle down. But something keeps calling her back to a little tourist trap called Cool Springs in rural West Virginia. The sign at the quirky little store boasts, “Good food, groceries, ice cream, hardware, feed store, taxidermy, gifts, and gas.” Cool Springs is owned by Laurel Stemple and her grandmother Ree. Laurel is charged with the daily operations of the catch-all little store/diner and the care of her octogenarian grandmother. A frequent visitor, Val has become like family at Cool Springs. Interesting characters like Mule, aptly nicknamed for his braying laughter and Wunder, whose child-like questions keep everyone in stitches, create a unique tapestry of community in the little store. Over the years, Val and Laurel have gradually fallen in love without acknowledging it. Personal secrets and scars have left the pair unable to move toward a relationship. While covering an annual Memorial Day Ride to the Wall, a near tragic accident forces Val and Laurel to confront their feelings and fears.
Expecting Sunshine: A Journey of Grief, Healing, and Pregnancy After Loss
Alexis Marie Chute - 2017
After her son, Zachary, dies in her arms at birth, visual artist and author Alexis Marie Chute disappears into her “Year of Distraction.” She cannot paint or write or tap into the heart of who she used to be, mourning not only for Zachary, but also for the future they might have had together. It is only when Chute learns she is pregnant again that she sets out to find healing and rediscover her identity—just in time, she hopes, to welcome her next child. In the forty weeks of her pregnancy, Chute grapples with her strained marriage, shaken faith, and medical diagnosis, with profound results. Glowing with riveting and gorgeous prose, Expecting Sunshine chronicles the anticipation and anxiety of expecting a baby while still grieving for the child that came before—enveloping readers with insightful observations on grief and healing, life and death, and the incredible power of a mother’s love.Second Edition includes: Bonus chapter written from the author’s husband’s perspective. Plus, resource section, group discussion questions, and Q&A with author Alexis Marie Chute
Fusion
Diana Kane - 2017
Catherine is an accomplished neurosurgeon looking for a fresh start in a new city. A chance meeting between the two imprints the doctor in Alexis' mind, with thoughts of Catherine pushing to the forefront months after they meet. When life places the pair in the same city, Alexis is unable to deny her attraction to Catherine. As the pair become closer, Alexis finds herself falling for Catherine, despite knowing that her feelings will never be reciprocated. Can the pair navigate through life and maintain their friendship or does fate have something else in store?Recommended for 18 years or age or older. F/F romance. Contains some strong language and explicit adult situations. 101,800 words.
Falling Hard
Jae - 2017
Jordan Williams devotes her life to two things: saving patients in the operating room and pleasuring her latest conquest in the bedroom. Her idea of commitment is spending a few hours together in bed.Single mom Emma Larson is Jordan’s polar opposite. Family and fidelity mean everything to her. After an ugly divorce from her wife, a plastic surgeon, she and her five-year-old daughter move in next door to Jordan. While she finds Jordan undeniably attractive, falling in love with another womanizing surgeon is the last things she needs.When a bad fall leaves Jordan in need of assistance, Emma decides to help her while she recovers.Could those six weeks turn out to be the beginning of a happily ever after, or will they both end up with a broken heart?122,000 wordsThemes: doctors · family romance · interracial · lesbian · medical romance · opposites attract · player · single mom
Detached
Wendy Weiss - 2017
Her father, Dr. Jason Smith, an underachieving insurance company medical director who is plagued with sever panic attacks, learns about a new medication that has a high remission rate in adults with the same diagnosis. But the medication is not FDA approved for children. Jason's desires to find a cure for his daughter's illness takes him on a unexpected, violent criminal path that tests the boundaries of his career and marriage, and jeopardizes his sanity. But will he finally be successful in saving his daughter, and at what cost? From debut Author Wendy Weiss, comes a disturbing, psychological thriller about a desperate man, that takes you on an intense journey up and down the Southwest Florida coastline.
The Spectrum of Hope: An Optimistic and New Approach to Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias
Gayatri Devi - 2017
And imagine how that would change the outlook of the 5 million Americans who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, not to mention their families, loved ones, and caretakers. A neurologist who’s been specializing in dementia and memory loss for more than 20 years, Dr. Gayatri Devi rewrites the story of Alzheimer’s by defining it as a spectrum disorder—like autism, Alzheimer’s is a disease that affects different people differently. She encourages people who are worried about memory impairment to seek a diagnosis, because early treatment will enable doctors and caregivers to manage the disease more effectively through drugs and other therapies. Told through the stories of Dr. Devi’s patients, The Spectrum of Hope is the kind of narrative medical writing that grips the reader, humanizes the science, and offers equal parts practical advice and wisdom with skillful ease. But beyond the pleasures of great reading, it’s a book that offers real hope. Here are chapters on how to maintain independence and dignity; how to fight depression, anxiety, and apathy; how to communicate effectively with a person suffering from dementia. Plus chapters on sexuality, genetics, going public with the diagnosis, even putting together a bucket list—because through her practice, Dr. Devi knows that the majority of Alzheimer’s patients continue to live and work in their communities. They babysit their grandkids, drive to the store (or own the store), serve their clients, or otherwise live fulfilling lives. That’s news that 5 million people are waiting to hear.
The Little Demons Inside (Eudaimonia Book 1)
Micah Chaim Thomas - 2017
This is not a horror story, but there are horrors. This is not a true story, but there is truth. In 2017, something went wrong with the world. Or, at least, in 2017, everyone finally saw it. Henry needed to get off the streets to avoid the heat and volunteered for an experimental drug trial. The permanent side effects made his life dangerous and unpredictable. Henry doesn’t know what to do, doesn't know his place. He’s a broken version of a wandering superhero. Then he meets Cassie. Their connection is brief and intense. These two lost souls are propelled together, apart, and together again in a mind-bending adventure that challenges them to face their demons. Content Warning: This book contains vulgar language and depictions of violence and moral decay against humans, including but not limited to psychic possession and sexual acts under said possession.
The Annals of a Country Doctor
Carl Matlock - 2017
You’re unlikely to forget the experiences or regret the sharing.
The Big Free
Martha B. Boone - 2017
New Orleans, 1982. Voodoo spells, prostitutes, prisoners, and veterans who are adamant about the size of their manhood—it’s all just another day at Charity Hospital, also known as The Big Free. It’s a medical free-for-all with the toughest trauma surgery in America, and Elizabeth—fresh from medical school in Charleston, wearing pearls and pink plaid socks—is one of the first women to work there. Half of the doctors who start the surgery program never finish. Nothing in her proper Southern upbringing prepared Elizabeth for the gritty and gruesome world she now experiences on a daily basis. And even if she’s tougher than anyone first expected, the question remains . . . will she make the cut? Full of drama, humor, and New Orleans flavor, The Big Free is a young doctor’s coming of age story as only a true medical insider can tell it.
Things That Helped: Essays
Jessica Friedmann - 2017
I had broken my relationship with sleep.
In this stunning collection, Jessica Friedmann navigates her journey through postpartum depression after the birth of her son. Drawing on critical theory, popular culture, and personal experience, her wide-ranging essays touch on class, race, gender, and sexuality, as well as motherhood, creativity, and mental illness.Occasionally confronting, but always powerfully moving and beautifully observed, Things That Helped charts Jessica’s return into the world: a slow and complex process of reassembling what depression fractured, and sometimes broke.
The Dementia Handbook: How to Provide Dementia Care at Home
Judy Cornish - 2017
People with dementia or Alzheimer’s experience emotional distress, which leads to behavioral complications and the need for institutional care. However, if families and caregivers are able to identify the emotional needs caused by dementia and understand which skills are lost and which remain, they can lower the behavioral complications and their own stress. As the founder of the Dementia & Alzheimer’s Wellbeing Network® (DAWN), Judy Cornish approaches dementia care with clear and empathetic methods that not only improve the lives of the individuals with dementia but also of those caring for them. Dementia and Alzheimer’s are very personal and individual experiences—they vary from person to person. However, Cornish has identified a pattern in the abilities and disabilities of people living with dementia. Based on her findings, Cornish was able to develop methods for caregivers to ease emotional distress, which can quickly and safely resolve behavioral complications. Though people with dementia lose a sense of self, they are still the same person you always loved. Judy Cornish understands this. The Dementia Handbook: How to Provide Dementia Care at Home is the supportive guide you’ve been looking for as you walk alongside your loved one on this difficult—but potentially rewarding—new path.
Healing Children: A Surgeon's Stories from the Frontiers of Pediatric Medicine
Kurt Newman - 2017
As the current CEO of Children's National in Washington, D.C., the author presents an argument to place children's medical requirements and their need to thrive well into adulthood at the forefront of American medicine, and he admits that 'these kids have been my real teachers
The Simplicity of Healing: A Practical Guide to Releasing the Miracle-Power of God's Word: A Practical Guide to Releasing/Activating the Miracle-Power of God's Word
Sandra Kennedy - 2017
Sandra Kennedy
Receiving your healing was never meant to be a complicated process; it should be as simple as putting God’s Word into practice in your life!
In Dr. Sandra Kennedy’s groundbreaking book, The Simplicity of Healing, you will receive teaching on how to practically activate God’s Word and experience God’s healing power in every area of your life that’s hurting: physical health, emotions, finances, relationships, and more!
Also, you’ll be encouraged by Dr. Kennedy’s personal healing testimony and receive a list of Scriptures that you can pray and confess to receive your healing breakthrough.
Learn how God’s Word is your secret to:
Building an unshakeable faith in God’s power
Releasing your faith through confession and declaration
Activating the multiplied power of agreement
Rising above the circumstances coming against you
Persevering for breakthrough by protecting your focus
God’s Word holds the key to your healing and wholeness. Learn how to release its miracle power over every area of your life that’s hurting!
Birth of a New Brain: Healing from Postpartum Bipolar Disorder
Dyane Harwood - 2017
Birth of a New Brain vividly depicts her postpartum bipolar disorder, an unusual type of bipolar disorder and postpartum mood and anxiety disorder. During her childhood, Harwood grew up close to her father, a brilliant violinist in the Los Angeles Philharmonic who had bipolar disorder. She learned how bipolar disorder could ravage a family, but she never suspected that she’d become mentally ill—until her baby was born. Harwood wondered if mental health would always be out of her reach. From medications to electroconvulsive therapy, from “redwood forest baths” to bibliotherapy, she explored both traditional and unconventional methods of recovery—in-between harrowing psychiatric hospitalizations. Harwood reveals how she ultimately achieved a stable mood. She discovered that despite having a chronic mood disorder, a new, richer life is possible. Birth of a New Brain is the chronicle of one mother’s perseverance, offering hope and grounded advice for those battling mental illness.
How Should a Body Be?
Bethany Meloche - 2017
The cause? Charcot-Marie-Tooth, an inherited genetic disorder (or is it a disease?). How does it feel? Like a torpedo that has wrecked her once idyllic childhood. And yet, CMT isn’t everything; Bethany grows up, goes to college, falls in love, and learns that the person she has become is, at her heart, the person she always was—just with braces. HOW SHOULD A BODY BE? is a coming of age story, a family story, and above all a love story that happens to be set against the backdrop of its titular question.
When Reasoning No Longer Works: A Practical Guide for Caregivers Dealing with Dementia & Alzheimer's Care
Angel Smits - 2017
They do this with little training, and often only their good intentions guide them. When Reasoning No Longer Works is the training manual these family caregivers have been searching for. Written by a Gerontologist with more than twenty years of experience, this reference gives the reader an easy to understand view of what dementia does to the brain, how it is diagnosed, and most importantly, how to deal with its effects. Bulleted lists clearly explain: • How to avoid a catastrophic reaction • Specific approaches for aggressive behavior • How to deal with disruptive behaviors • Ways to diminish wandering • What to do when a wanderer is missing • When to look for outside help You’ll also follow the story of Lou and Rose, a couple who share their lives with Alzheimer’s disease. Together, they find the answers to questions caregivers and victims are sometimes afraid to ask. (with foreword by Dr. Randall J. Bjork) "Sixteen years ago, my father, Charles, died as the result of AD. For many years to come, I knew that I had failed him. I wish I knew then what I read about now in When Reasoning No Longer Works. The stress of living with an Alzheimer’s patient in the family can be heart-wrenching, but this book provides hope and help.” — Jeanie M, daughter and caregiver
10 B.S. Medical Tropes that Need to Die TODAY: ...and What to Do Instead (The ScriptMedic Guides)
Samantha Keel - 2017
Written by a paramedic and writer with a decade of experience, 10 BS Medical Tropes covers exactly that: clichéd and inaccurate tropes that not only ruin books, they have the potential to hurt real people in the real world. In this book, you’ll discover why these ten clichés make readers throw their books across the room and their remotes at their TVs, from the ever-present “gunshot to the shoulder” to the ubiquitous “knocking out the henchmen.” You’ll learn why they’re so incorrect, with easy-to-read medical explanations that may just spark your creativity. But more importantly, you’ll be inspired about what to write instead, to solve the same plot point challenges in more believable—and interesting—ways! Download 10 BS Medical Tropes that Need to Die… TODAY!
Sweet, Sweet Surprise
H.L. Nighbor - 2017
If it can go wrong, it does. Despite the challenges the day brings, it’s all worth it at the end when they welcome their sweet, sweet surprise.This short story should be read after reading Sweet, Sweet Savannah (Book 1 in the Still Water Pub Series).
Worry Less, Live More: God’s Prescription for a Better Life
Robert J. Morgan - 2017
Life is harder than we expect, and even the Lord Jesus, the Prince of Peace Himself, admitted, “Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:34). He said, “In this world you will have trouble” (John 16:33). On one occasion, He even said, “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say?” (John 12:27). Our souls are easily troubled. The world and its trials seem to only increase. In nearly forty years of pastoral counseling, Rob Morgan has seen a lot of changes in our culture. People are anxious, and everyone seems increasingly tense and taunt. We’re overextended, running on empty, and often running late. We’re worried and we’re weary. One moment we’re alarmed about global politics and the next we’re frustrated with a clogged commode or a cranky boss. Stress can have a way of keeping us on pins and needles from dawn to darkness.In this book Pastor Morgan leads the way through the investigation of the Bible’s premier passage on the subject of anxiety. Philippians 4:4–9 is God’s most definitive word about overcoming anxiety and experiencing His overwhelming peace. Dissecting the following eight practices this vital passage promotes will help you to wage war on worry:The Practice of RejoicingThe Practice of GentlenessThe Practice of NearnessThe Practice of PrayerThe Practice of ThanksgivingThe Practice of ThinkingThe Practice of DiscipleshipThe Practice of PeaceWhen we study and employ these practices effectively, we have the power to erase anxious thoughts and compose our minds with peace in any situation.
Stand Up
Ken Cruickshank - 2017
Indeed, all was proceeding to plan until an invisible enemy strengthened its grip on his body and mind. Goals, abilities, and many dreams grew forever affected by progressive disease. After an accident crumpled his weakened body, he dug deep to rediscover the optimism and hope he'd once considered his essence. He realized that the illness he blamed for stealing his identity was also the path to wisdom and a life of fulfillment.
My Beautiful Struggle
Jordan Bone - 2017
This is the inspiring true story of how a girl got her life back.Aged 15, Jordan Bone got into a car with friends. She would never walk again. Paralysed from the chest down, her life was changed forever. Becoming depressed and feeling like life wasn't worth living, these weren't the teenage years that Jordan had envisaged.However, slowly but surely, she began to get herself out of the darkness. With a little help from the internet, Jordan started to embrace positive thinking and embarked on a personal journey to get her confidence - and her life - back. Eleven years on from the accident, Jordan creates her own beauty tutorials on YouTube and has a range of successful brand partnerships. She has reclaimed her life and her independence and now wants to share her inspirational story with others and is telling it through different aspects of beauty. This isn't a book about looking good on the surface, this is a story of inner strength, believing in yourself and finding motivation when you feel like all hope is gone.
Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine
Ian B. Wilkinson - 2017
Each page has been updated to reflect the latest changes in practice and best management, and thechapters on gastroenterology, history and examination, infectious disease, neurology, and radiology have been extensively revised.Unique among medical texts, the Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine is a complete and concise guide to the core areas of medicine that also encourages thinking about the world from the patient's perspective, offering a holistic, patient-centred approach.Loved and trusted by millions for over three decades, the Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine continues to be a truly indispensable companion for the practice of modern medicine.
Taken Hostage
Jordyn Redwood - 2017
If she wishes to ever see her child again, Regan must hand over the virus she uses in a radical cancer treatment. But bounty hunter Colby Waterson can't let her trade the cure, which is his sister's last hope. He's already lost a wife and baby, and he won't lose anyone else. But when a mistake leads both him and Regan into the hands of the bad guys, the kidnappers up their demands. Now Regan must create a biological weapon or her daughter dies. For Colby, no case has ever been this personal. He'll need every skill he's got, because only he can save both his sister and the woman he's growing to care for.
Confessions of an American Doctor: A true story of greed, ego and loss of ethics
Max Kepler - 2017
At the time of my arrest, I was a thirty-seven year old Harvard graduate with medical and post-doctoral degrees. I attended one of the finest residency and fellowship training programs in the world at the University of California, San Francisco. I played two sports in college, earned awards at every level of education and training, had wonderful friends and a beautiful three-year-old daughter. Having grown up the son of a restaurant manager and a housewife, I had transcended the humble beginnings of a small Midwestern town to become the quintessential American Dream.Or so I thought. But with my arrest on felony importation charges, everything I had worked so hard for was swept away and the entire trajectory of my life was indelibly altered. I would embark on a three year battle not only for my medical license, but also for my freedom. This journey would lead to intense personal introspection, and in that process, I would discover with ugliness, there was also beauty, and with punishment, mercy.There are many reasons I have written this manuscript, with one of the most important being that I hoped my story would resonate with others who have gone through difficult circumstances as a consequence of a dark side of their personality. With this book, I hope to inspire others to accept and embrace the good and bad, while continually striving for improved self-understanding and acceptance.I have changed names primarily for legal purposes, but the facts are unchanged. Although the events described in the book occurred more than ten years ago, I think about them nearly every day. The shame and humiliation are ever-present. Any simple Google search of my name reveals the truth, and that truth has affected me over and over, despite the years, as it probably should. As the judge told me that day in a federal courtroom, "You have betrayed the public's trust." This is my confessional.
Of This Much I'm Sure: A Memoir
Nadine Kenney Johnstone - 2017
After a whirlwind, long-distance romance, Nadine leaves her friends, family, and city to join Jamie in suburban Massachusetts. Once married, they begin trying for a baby without knowing how hard that road will become. Nadine soon faces the little-known horrors of IVF when a procedure causes severe internal bleeding, and she wakes up from emergency surgery with a six-inch scar instead of a baby bump. In the difficult year that follows, anxiety and additional failed fertility treatments threaten her new marriage and her mental state. By some saving grace, she eventually becomes pregnant naturally, but the horrors are not over: her son is diagnosed with potentially terminal kidney complications. Ultimately, Nadine learns that in an unpredictable life, the only thing she can be sure of is the healing power of hope.
The Advanced Ventilator Book
William Owens - 2017
It goes beyond the ventilator itself to discuss strategies for severe hypoxemia and rescue maneuvers for refractory respiratory failure. Subjects covered in The Advanced Ventilator Book include: • Optimal PEEP • Treatment of severe bronchospasm • Prone positioning • Therapeutic neuromuscular blockade • Inhaled nitric oxide • Veno-Venous ECMO • The seven rules of severe respiratory failure Dr. William Owens explains these complex concepts in a clear and readable manner. Like the original, this book is meant to be used in the ICU or Emergency Department instead of the library. The focus is on the bedside care of critically ill patients, as it should be.
Well, Doc, It Seemed Like a Good Idea At The Time!: The Unexpected Adventures of a Trauma Surgeon
J. Paul Waymack - 2017
Some of them, he’s the first to admit, seem unbelievable--like chasing a naked patient around the ER parking lot in the middle of the night . . . or constructing a horse sling for a 700-pound patient . . . or treating a patient who swallowed a cigarette lighter . . . or serving as a major in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during the Cold War, on orders of the president and with a KGB agent hot on his tail in the Soviet Union. In his wildest dreams, Dr. Waymack could never have imagined most of what he experienced as a doctor, but these stories are all true. He couldn’t have made them up if he tried.
Pelvic Liberation: Using Yoga, Self-Inquiry, and Breath Awareness for Pelvic Health
Leslie Howard - 2017
In addition to explaining practical yoga techniques that will heal body and mind, Pelvic Liberation will take you through eye-opening reflections to help you overcome cultural and historical influences that have impaired every woman’s health. Leslie brings thoughtfulness, a dash of humor, and a therapeutic focus to a subject that can be difficult and overwhelming. This book is a shout-out to normalize the conversation about pelvic health and improve a woman’s knowledge and awareness of her pelvis. Every woman, yoga instructor, and women’s health professional will benefit from this richly informative book.
Secrets & Wishes
Kathleen Rouser - 2017
Both widowed, they’re each doing their best as single-parents. Outgoing Maggie has dreams for a home of her own and a business to provide for her son as she searches for God’s path for her life as a widow. Reserved Thomas struggles to establish his new pharmacy and take care of his four rambunctious children, while wondering how a loving God could take his beloved wife. When Thomas becomes deathly ill, Maggie is recruited to nurse him back to health. Taking the children in hand, as well, is more than she bargained for, but she is drawn to help the grieving family. Both nurse and patient find themselves drawn to each other but promptly deny their feelings. A baking contest sponsored by the Silver Leaf Flour Company brings former beau, Giles Prescott, back into Maggie’s life. When Giles offers Maggie a position at their test kitchen in Chicago, he hints that, along with assuring her a good job, it will allow them to possibly rekindle their relationship. But then a charlatan comes to town, and tragedy soon follows. Maggie and Thomas discover the miracle potions he hawks aren’t so harmless when an epidemic hits Stone Creek. Thomas and Maggie realize they must work together to save lives. Maggie finds herself caught up in battles within and without—the battle to help the townsfolk in the midst of illness and chicanery, and the battle to know which man—Thomas or Giles—deserves to win her heart. Written for the General Market (G) (I): Contains little or no; sexual dialogue or situations, violence, or strong language. May also contain some content of an inspirational/religious nature. Similar romance novels in this genre may be categorized as: christian romance, inspirational romance, christian fiction, and clean, wholesome romance.
The Leafly Guide to Cannabis: A Handbook for the Modern Consumer
The Leafly Team - 2017
HARD ROLL: A Paramedic’s Perspective of Life and Death in New Orleans
Jon McCarthy - 2017
He chronicles some of the most formative calls of his career in this autobiography that reads like crime fiction. McCarthy demonstrates with detail and clarity that the difficult choice is often the right choice. While not for the faint of heart, each entry in this collection provides poignant insight into the bonds between medics and the people and city they serve.
I Am 911 (A Collection of Reader-Submitted Medical Stories Book 4)
Kerry Hamm - 2017
The mixture of funny and heartbreaking submissions will leave you rolling in tears and then sobbing as you reach for tissues.
Doctor Feelgood
Weston Parker - 2017
Tell me what ails you, baby. I'll make you feel real good.I didn't join the medical field because of the women, but it sure as f*ck has become a perk of the job.Now, a new forbidden lust has sparked my interest, but the odds are stacked against me.She's forbidden. Taboo. Unreachable.My mentor's sister is older than me and commands respect when she walks in the room. Nothing like the twenty-year old floozies that spread their legs at nothing more than a look.Ansley is divorced and dominant. Word on the street is that she left the old guy she was hitched to because she wanted kids.He didn't.Wonder if she is looking for a baby daddy?I have all the right instruments for that sh*t and I'm more than willing to let her borrow them for a night - or two...They say an apple a day keeps the doctor away. F*ck that. I'll eat that apple first, and then you're next.Now, how do you like them apples?Every good girl deserves a bad boy... ~ Weston ParkerDoctor Feelgood is 55,000 word complete stand-alone novel with no cheating, no cliffhanger, and a guaranteed HEA. For a limited time, there are a few unpublished or never before published stories from Weston & Ali's bookshelf, all of which should send you running for a cold shower. That's the hope!
Diabetes Unpacked: Just Science and Sense. No Sugar Coating
Tim NoakesDavid Unwin - 2017
One boy in the school had Type 1 and a friend of a friend’s granny had Type 2. We now see adults being diagnosed with Type 1 and children developing Type 2. There are over 400 million diabetics world-wide – four times as many as in 1980. The vast majority of these have Type 2 – sometimes judged as a ‘lifestyle’ disease. The traditional view of diabetes is that is it a “chronic and progressive” condition and that nothing can be done about it. Serious complications include loss of eyesight, amputations and death. This book has gathered together some of the finest minds working in the field of diabetes and diet. The result is a collection of chapters by thought leaders, academics and doctors addressing the big issues. What is diabetes? What are the different types? What causes it? Who gets it? Why do we eat so much carbohydrate? Why do diabetics die of heart disease? Why do athletes commonly get Type 2 diabetes? The writers in this book approach diabetes from many different angles, but they all share one common belief: Diabetes does not need to be “chronic and progressive.” Both Type 1 and Type 2 can be substantially alleviated and the latter can be ‘put into remission.’ Let us tell you how...
The Life of Death: The Bare Bones of Undertaking
Ralph R. Rossell - 2017
Ralph was born the month his father and mother moved to Flushing, Michigan, to work in his uncle's funeral home. Dinners and sleep interrupted by calls from families were a common occurrence, but so were the heart-warming moments helping grieving families.The Life of Death is a collection of stories about Ralph's memories of the funeral home, both growing up and then working there as a licensed funeral director for more than 45 years. Just about every aspect of the funeral business is in the book: early burial practices, mortuary school, death calls, ambulance calls, caskets, burial vaults, monuments, clergy, doctors, pathologists, hospitals and cemetery (the good the bad and the ugly). There are stories of thievery, premonitions, paranormal as well as lessons learned. There are happy stories, sad stories and humorous ones. The Life of Death is crafted to be an interesting and enjoyable read and will give an otherwise unknown look at life and death in the eyes of an undertaker. It may very well change your own perspective of life.
The Bull Rider's Homecoming
Allie Pleiter - 2017
To get back on the circuit he'll need physical therapist Ruby Sheldon's help. Six years ago, he left Ruby behind, convinced she was too innocent for such a public life. Now his high school sweetheart is stronger, tougher and even more captivating. A high-profile success story like this could make Ruby's career. All she has to do is rein in Luke's bullheadedness, heal his injuries--and hope his reckless charm doesn't trample her heart again...
Little Big Steps: A Life-Changing Injury and the Inspirational Journey to Overcome the Odds
Arash Bayatmakou - 2017
The neurosurgeon leans down and breaks the news: You won’t regain any function in your body and you will never walk again. My medical insurance sends me home, discontinues my care, and tells me to “adapt to my new life.”Little Big Steps is the story of the pivotal moments, interactions, and breakthroughs following the injury that turned my life upside down. Each chapter explores the experiences, challenges, and discoveries that have inspired me to work towards those accomplishments I was told were impossible. There are moments of immense frustration and grief, and moments of surreal hilariousness and unparalleled joy as I remain on the path to get back on my feet. The story culminates with proof that motivation, determination, and unwavering commitment can lead to incredible achievements.
Understanding Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder
Claire Smith - 2017
This shift in understanding demands a different approach to information provision; one that is tailored specifically to those with hEDS and HSD, and which provides a clear, concise and balanced overview - a book that allows you to ‘see the woods from the trees!' Whether you are newly diagnosed, or a patient or healthcare professional this ground breaking book, reviewed by leading experts and reflecting the most up to date knowledge from the EDS International Classification 2017, brings together all the information you most want to know about the newly classified 'hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome' and 'hypermobility spectrum disorder.' The author has not only managed to compile clear and concise answers to frequently asked questions, such as ‘How do these conditions overlap?’ and ‘Why are people affected so differently?’, she has provided detailed descriptions of symptoms and associated co-morbidities, and has provided comprehensive, accessible, evidence-based information relating to diagnosis and management. Exercise, physiotherapy, surgery and the psychological effects of the disorder are discussed, as well as what to expect during clinical assessment, and much, much more. From postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome to mast cell activation syndrome, and from clinical assessment to self-management - if you ever wished that you could find all of the information you need, together, in one place... Look no further!
The Education of a Coroner: Lessons in Investigating Death
John Bateson - 2017
Judy Melinek’s Working Stiff, an account of the hair-raising and heartbreaking cases handled by the coroner of Marin County, California throughout his four decades on the job—from high-profile deaths to serial killers, to Golden Gate Bridge suicides.Marin County, California is a study in contradictions. Its natural beauty attracts thousands of visitors every year, yet the county also is home to San Quentin Prison, one of the oldest and largest penitentiaries in the country. Marin ranks in the top one percent of counties nationwide in terms of affluence and overall health, yet it is far above the norm in drug overdoses and alcoholism, and comprises a large percentage of suicides from the Golden Gate Bridge. Ken Holmes worked in the Marin County Coroner’s Office for thirty-six years, starting as a death investigator and ending as the three-term, elected coroner. As he grew into the job—which is different from what is depicted on television—Holmes learned a variety of skills, from finding hidden clues at death scenes, interviewing witnesses effectively, managing bystanders and reporters, preparing testimony for court to notifying families of a death with sensitivity and compassion. He also learned about different kinds of firearms, all types of drugs—prescription and illegal—and about certain unexpected and potentially fatal phenomena such as autoeroticism. Complete with poignant anecdotes, The Education of a Coroner provides a firsthand and fascinating glimpse into the daily life of a public servant whose work is dark and mysterious yet necessary for society to function.
Maim Your Characters: How Injuries Work in Fiction (The ScriptMedic Guides Book 1)
Samantha Keel - 2017
Maim Your Characters is the definitive guide to using wounds and injuries to their greatest effect in your story. Learn not only the six critical parts of an injury plot, but more importantly, how to make sure that the injury you’re inflicting matters. With in-depth analysis of nine different injury plots in popular fiction and a walkthrough of how to build your own, this book is the guide to using injuries in your story. Written by a paramedic with a decade of experience, Maim Your Characters will teach you what to do — and what not to. This book also includes a sneak preview of the upcoming Blood on the Page, a book of injuries to incorporate into your tales. If Maim Your Characters is the how and why of injuring characters, then Blood on the Page is the what. Are you ready.... to Maim Your Characters?
LOVE The Beat Goes On
Lynda Filler - 2017
Lynda shares her journey in the typical fast-paced, edgy, in-your-face style she’s known for in her novels. She’s hard-hitting, and tells you exactly how it is. She writes about romantic experiences that may shock you, but makes no apologies for her unconventional life style. Nor does she hold back taking responsibility for the things that she believes created her dis-ease. You will definitely question a woman who walks around with shortness of breath and blames it on sinus medication; then makes a decision to drive, all alone, from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico to Whistler, Canada with undiagnosed Idiopathic Dilated Cardiomyopathy. Women are often self-care-challenged and Lynda was no the exception. If you are fighting any kind of illness or dis-ease, you are not alone! Lynda has walked her talk, and after an experience in the summer of 2015 relating to Dr. Wayne Dyer, she is now ready to release her story Lynda knows how it feels to be told you’re not healing or your condition is incurable. At no point will she undermine anything your physicians tell you to do. She is not a medical doctor. She will explain the powerful, yet simple concepts and beliefs that she believes led to her healing. Most of all, she will show you how she used these simple principles to design and live, the fully healed life she now enjoys in 2017. You will shake your head in wonder, laugh, and maybe cry too. If you want less pain, worry, and stress about dis-ease and life in general, you will want to read this simple yet powerful story.
Living with Cancer: A Step-By-Step Guide for Coping Medically and Emotionally with a Serious Diagnosis
Vicki A. Jackson - 2017
While patients have access to a vast amount of medical information online, this advice is often unreliable or confusing. In Living with Cancer, Drs. Vicki A. Jackson and David P. Ryan have crafted the first step-by-step guide aimed at helping people with this life-defining disease grasp what's happening to them while coping physically and emotionally with cancer treatment.An empathetic resource full of relatable patient stories, this book teaches patients and caregivers how to ask the right questions to get the best possible care--beginning at the moment of diagnosis. Drs. Jackson and Ryan explain how to work with a team of doctors and nurse practitioners to minimize symptoms and side effects while living as fully as possible in the face of cancer. They relay important information about understanding prognosis, and they translate what doctors mean when they describe tests, treatments, and medical procedures. Finally, they discuss hospice care and answer questions about continuing treatment and managing the final phase of life.Based on new research and a groundbreaking program in which patients are treated with palliative care--along with the best cancer care--during the course of their illness, this honest and caring book provides the right advice to use at the right time throughout a journey with cancer. It allows a person with cancer to concentrate on living the best life possible, despite an uncertain future. Patients at every stage will find Living with Cancer a comprehensive, thoughtful, and accessible guide for navigating the illness and its treatment.
Best Supplements for Men: For More Muscle, Higher Testosterone, Longer Life, and Better Looks
P.D. Mangan - 2017
D. Mangan shows how widely available and inexpensive over-the-counter supplements can help grow muscle, boost testosterone, help you live longer, and improve your looks. Written in jargon-free style, the book provides scientific evidence for each supplement's efficacy and safety, their uses, and how they work, and also tells you what supplements don't work. Best Supplements for Men will show you - why muscle growth is essential for health - the two most important factors in getting and keeping muscle - why men's testosterone levels are declining, and what to do about it - how scientists have used simple supplements to fight aging and extend lifespan - why spending a lot of money on supplements isn't necessary - why Big Pharma doesn't want you to know about supplements - how to use supplements to improve a sound diet and exercise program. P. D. Mangan is the author of 6 previous books, and writes at his website, Rogue Health and Fitness.
Stop the Slip: Reducing Slips, Trips and Falls
Thom Disch - 2017
Fall injuries are the number one cause of emergency room visits and the fourteenth leading cause of death in the US. The average person is 7 times more likely to die from a fall than from the flu and 3 times more likely to die from a fall than by a firearm. Since 1999, we have reduced deaths from heart disease 15%. Deaths caused by auto accidents are down 12%. But during that same time period deaths from falls have increased over 150%. Both injuries and deaths caused by falls are at record highs and the problem continues to grow. We've learned how to fix the human heart and we have made driving safer. Now is the time to focus on preventing fall injuries. The good news is that fall injuries are preventable. Everyone falls, but falls don't just happen, they're preceded by other events. When you eliminate those events, you reduce the risk of falling. Stop the Slip shows how you can avoid these injuries. Following the simple five step A-L-E-R-T System(TM) discussed in the book you will reduce your risk of falling. Thom Disch provides an entertaining and engaging look at: Why we fall; where we fall; the business side of falls; and most importantly how we can prevent and avoid fall injuries. The book is a comprehensive mix of research on the topic of falls and fall injuries mixed with real world stories and experiences about falls and their consequences. As you read this book you'll also discover many interesting and surprising facts. For example: -Fall injuries are not just a problem for the elderly. 75% of all fall injuries happen to people under the age of 68. -The annual economic impact of fall injuries in the US exceeds $150 billion, or more than 1% of our gross domestic product. -Falls are the number one cause of traumatic brain injuries. -Winter weather appears to be a much smaller cause of fall deaths than you might expect. -Falls cause nearly 4 times more emergency room visits than auto accidents. This is a topic that affects everyone. Reading this book is the first step to making your family and friends safer.
Death in the Family
John Chipman - 2017
Charles Smith's ignominious career.In the mid-'90s, the Ontario Coroner's office decided that death investigation teams needed to think dirty. They wanted coroners, pathologists and police to be more suspicious--to assume that all deaths are homicides until satisfied that they are not. They were particularly concerned about pediatric deaths, which historically had been exceedingly difficult to investigate. There were usually no witnesses; no evidence to gather at the scene; no outward signs of trauma on the body. If the pathologist did not discover the truth of what had happened, child abuse could go uncovered. Among those charged to think dirty was Dr. Charles Smith, Ontario's top pediatric forensic pathologist at the time. But with virtually no training in forensics, Dr. Smith was ill prepared for his work. Instead of basing his judgments on forensic evidence found during autopsies, he allowed himself to be swayed by circumstantial evidence. The defendants were often single mothers--some on welfare, some struggling with substance abuse. And they made for easy targets. Dr. Smith made dangerous assumptions, and the results were catastrophic. Numerous individuals were pronounced guilty, and incarcerated, on his shaky evidence. This penetrating investigative work explores the wide ripples of destruction caused when the justice system fails, the burden felt by ethical individuals working within that system and the importance of its victims finally being heard.
Watching the Daisies: Life Lessons on the Importance of Slow
Brigid P. Gallagher - 2017
As yet, there is no cure.In this memoir, Brigid P. Gallagher shares her experiences on:The busy life she followed before succumbing to this debilitating disease Stopping and soul searching for answers to her vast array of symptoms Entering a new life of SLOW Drawing on her knowledge and experience as a Natural Medicines therapist, she seeks out therapies to aid her healing and integrates a variety of self help techniques and lifestyle changes. She also unearths a love of solo travel including Egypt, India, Rome, Lourdes, Carcassonne and Bali...Brigid learns many insights about LIFE on her journey, the most valuable being:
"First learn to love thyself."
In 2006, she began a new career in Organic Horticulture eventually teaching part time in schools. Although she has now retired from teaching, she continues to pursue her lifelong passion for gardening and watching the daisies.
On the Ragged Edge of Medicine: Doctoring Among the Dispossessed
Patricia Kullberg - 2017
Told through fifteen patient vignettes and drawn from the author's decades of experience on the front lines, this revealing memoir illuminates the impact of poverty on the delivery of health services and the ways in which people adapt and survive (or don't survive) in conditions of abuse and deprivation. Kullberg's stories show the direct and sometimes devastating effects of poverty on personal health, poignantly demonstrating that medicine is as much a social enterprise, as a scientific one. This book is a siren song for anyone in an urban area interested in the limits and possibilities of medicine within a context of social inequality and it draws the reader into the big tragedies, small tragedies, and every day mishaps of medicine when ministering to the destitute.
Undercurrent
J.A. Baker - 2017
They plan to lead a quiet existence, a set up that suits them both.Then Anna, who lives over the road and is bored of spending her days alone, seeks friendship with Phoebe and events take a dark turn.Phoebe has secrets and is haunted by her past and Anna's arrival in her life may prove to be the catalyst for her undoing.What is Phoebe hiding and why are she and her husband so reclusive?When Anna gets caught in a storm and is rescued by Phoebe the truth becomes apparent and Anna is thrown into danger.Is there a difference between madness and evil?Some friendships can be murder.
The Haywire Heart: How too much exercise can kill you, and what you can do to protect your heart
Chris Case - 2017
The Haywire Heart is the first book to examine heart conditions in athletes. Intended for anyone who competes in endurance sports like cycling, triathlon, running races of all distances, and cross-country skiing, The Haywire Heart presents the evidence that going too hard or too long can damage your heart forever. You’ll find what to watch out for, what to do about it, and how to protect your heart so you can enjoy the sports you love for years to come. The Haywire Heart shares the developing research into a group of conditions known as “athlete’s heart”, starting with a wide-ranging look at the warning signs, symptoms, and how to recognize your potential risk. Leading cardiac electrophysiologist and masters athlete Dr. John Mandrola explores the prevention and treatment of heart conditions in athletes like arrhythmia, atrial fibrillation and flutter, tachycardia, hypertrophy, and coronary artery disease. He reviews new research about exercise intensity and duration, recovery, inflammation and calcification, and the ways athletes inflict lasting harm. These heart problems are appearing with alarming frequency among masters athletes who are pushing their bodies harder than ever in the hope that exercise will keep them healthy and strong into their senior years. The book is complete with gripping case studies of elite and age-group athletes from journalist Chris Case—like the scary condition that nearly killed cyclist and coauthor Lennard Zinn—and includes a frank discussion of exercise addiction and the mental habits that prevent athletes from seeking medical help when they need it.Dr. Mandrola explains why many doctors misdiagnose heart conditions in athletes and offers an invaluable guide on how to talk with your doctor about your condition and its proven treatments. He covers known heart irritants, training and rest modifications, effective medicines, and safe supplements that can reduce the likelihood of heart damage from exercise. Heart conditions affect hardcore athletes as well as those who take up sports seeking better health and weight loss. The Haywire Heart is a groundbreaking and critically important guide to heart care for athletes. By protecting your heart now and watching for the warning signs, you can avoid crippling heart conditions and continue to exercise and compete for years to come.
The Family Gene: A Mission to Turn My Deadly Inheritance into a Hopeful Future
Joselin Linder - 2017
After years of misdiagnoses, doctors discovered a deadly blockage in her liver. Struggling to find an explanation for her unusual condition, Joselin compared the medical chart of her father—who had died from a mysterious disease, ten years prior—with that of an uncle who had died under similarly strange circumstances. Delving further into the past, she discovered that her great-grandmother had displayed symptoms similar to hers before her death. Clearly, this was more than a fluke. Setting out to build a more complete picture of the illness that haunted her family, Joselin approached Dr. Christine Seidman, the head of a group of world-class genetic researchers at Harvard Medical School, for help. Dr. Seidman had been working on her family’s case for twenty years and had finally confirmed that fourteen of Joselin’s relatives carried something called a private mutation—meaning that they were the first known people to experience the baffling symptoms of a brand new genetic mutation. Here, Joselin tells the story of their gene: the lives it claimed and the future of genomic medicine with the potential to save those that remain. Digging into family records and medical history, conducting interviews with relatives and friends, and reflecting on her own experiences with the Harvard doctor, Joselin pieces together the lineage of this deadly gene to write an exploration of family, history, and love.
Vaccines: A Reappraisal
Richard Moskowitz - 2017
Moskowitz examines vaccines and our current policy regarding them. Weaving together a tapestry of observed facts, clinical and basic science research, news reports from the media, and actual cases from his own practice, he offers a systematic review of the subject as a whole. He provides scientific evidence for his clinical impression that the vaccination process, by its very nature, imposes substantial risks of disease, injury, and death that have been persistently denied and covered up by manufacturers, the CDC, and the coterie of doctors who speak for it. With the aim of acknowledging these risks, taking them seriously, understanding them more holistically, and ultimately assessing them on a deeper level, he proposes a nationwide debate based on objective scientific research, including what we already know and what still needs to be investigated in the future. He argues that with no serious public health emergency to justify them, requiring vaccines of everyone deprives us all of genuinely informed consent, and prevents parents from making health-care decisions for our children, basic human rights that we still profess to hold dear. For the present, given the legitimate controversy surrounding the mandates, he proposes that most vaccines simply be made optional and that further research into their risks and benefits be conducted by an independent agency in the public interest, untainted by industry funding, CDC sponsorship, and the quasi-religious sanctimony that is widely invoked on their behalf.
Miracle Cure: The Creation of Antibiotics and the Birth of Modern Medicine
William Rosen - 2017
That all changed in less than a generation with the discovery and development of a new category of medicine known as antibiotics. By 1955, the age-old evolutionary relationship between humans and microbes had been transformed, trivializing once-deadly infections. William Rosen captures this revolution with all its false starts, lucky surprises, and eccentric characters. He explains why, given the complex nature of bacteria—and their ability to rapidly evolve into new forms—the only way to locate and test potential antibiotic strains is by large-scale, systematic, trial-and-error experimentation. Organizing that research needs large, well-funded organizations and businesses, and so our entire scientific-industrial complex, built around the pharmaceutical company, was born. Timely, engrossing, and eye-opening, Miracle Cure is a must-read science narrative—a drama of enormous range, combining science, technology, politics, and economics to illuminate the reasons behind one of the most dramatic changes in humanity’s relationship with nature since the invention of agriculture ten thousand years ago.
Medicalizing Blackness: Making Racial Difference in the Atlantic World, 1780-1840
Rana A. Hogarth - 2017
In this fascinating medical history, Rana A. Hogarth examines the creation and circulation of medical ideas about blackness in the Atlantic World during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. She shows how white physicians deployed blackness as a medically significant marker of difference and used medical knowledge to improve plantation labor efficiency, safeguard colonial and civic interests, and enhance control over black bodies during the era of slavery.Hogarth refigures Atlantic slave societies as medical frontiers of knowledge production on the topic of racial difference. Rather than looking to their counterparts in Europe who collected and dissected bodies to gain knowledge about race, white physicians in Atlantic slaveholding regions created and tested ideas about race based on the contexts in which they lived and practiced. What emerges in sharp relief is the ways in which blackness was reified in medical discourses and used to perpetuate notions of white supremacy.
Mistreated: Why We Think We're Getting Good Health Care -- and Why We're Usually Wrong
Robert Pearl - 2017
As patients, we wrongly assume the "best" care is dependent mainly on the newest medications, the most complex treatments, and the smartest doctors. But Americans look for health-care solutions in the wrong places. For example, hundreds of thousands of lives could be saved each year if doctors reduced common errors and maximized preventive medicine. For Dr. Robert Pearl, these kinds of mistakes are a matter of professional importance, but also personal significance: he lost his own father due in part to poor communication and treatment planning by doctors. And consumers make costly mistakes too: we demand modern information technology from our banks, airlines, and retailers, but we passively accept last century's technology in our health care. Solving the challenges of health care starts with understanding these problems. Mistreated explains why subconscious misperceptions are so common in medicine, and shows how modifying the structure, technology, financing, and leadership of American health care could radically improve quality outcomes. This important book proves we can overcome our fears and faulty assumptions, and provides a roadmap for a better, healthier future.