Puswhisperer: A Year in the Life of an Infectious Disease Doctor


Mark Crislip - 2010
    Spelling and grammar errors go unseen after numerous reading. But then, as Bones might say, Jim, I'm a doctor, not an editor.

The Smart but Scattered Guide to Success: How to Use Your Brain's Executive Skills to Keep Up, Stay Calm, and Get Organized at Work and at Home


Peg Dawson - 2016
    Cutting-edge research shows that today's 24/7 wired world and the growing demands of work and family life may simply max out the part of the brain that manages complex tasks. That's especially true for those lacking strong executive skills--the core brain-based abilities needed to maintain focus, meet deadlines, and stay cool under pressure. In this essential guide, leading experts Peg Dawson and Richard Guare help you map your own executive skills profile and take effective steps to boost your organizational skills, time management, emotional control, and nine other essential capacities. The book is packed with science-based strategies and concrete examples, plus downloadable practical tools for creating your own personalized action plan. Whether on the job or at home, you can get more done with less stress. See also the authors' Smart but Scattered parenting guides, plus an academic planner for students and related titles for professionals.

Unwinding Anxiety: New Science Shows How to Break the Cycles of Worry and Fear to Heal Your Mind


Judson Brewer - 2021
    Whether facing issues as public as a pandemic or as personal as having kids at home and fighting the urge to reach for the wine bottle every night, we are feeling overwhelmed and out of control. But in this timely book, Judson Brewer explains how to uproot anxiety at its source using brain-based techniques and small hacks accessible to anyone.We think of anxiety as everything from mild unease to full-blown panic. But it's also what drives the addictive behaviors and bad habits we use to cope (e.g. stress eating, procrastination, doom scrolling and social media). Plus, anxiety lives in a part of the brain that resists rational thought. So we get stuck in anxiety habit loops that we can't think our way out of or use willpower to overcome. Dr. Brewer teaches us map our brains to discover our triggers, defuse them with the simple but powerful practice of curiosity, and to train our brains using mindfulness and other practices that his lab has proven can work.Distilling more than 20 years of research and hands-on work with thousands of patients, including Olympic athletes and coaches, and leaders in government and business, Dr. Brewer has created a clear, solution-oriented program that anyone can use to feel better - no matter how anxious they feel.

The Lost Art of Healing: Practicing Compassion in Medicine


Bernard Lown - 1996
    In this wise and passionate book, one of our most eminent physicians reacquaints us with a classic notion often overlooked in modern medicine: health care with a human face, in which the time-honored art of healing guides doctors in their approach to patient care and their use of medical technology.Drawing on four decades of practice as a cardiologist and a vast knowledge of literature and medical history, Dr. Lown probes the heart and soul of the doctor-patient relationship. Insightful and accessible to all, The Lost Art of Healing describes how true healers use sympathetic listening and touch to hone their diagnostic skills, how language affects the perception of illness, how doctors and patients can cultivate a relationship of trust, and how patients can obtain the most complete and beneficial care through a combination of healing techniques and conventional practices. As Dr. Lown explains, the art of healing does not mean abandoning the spectacular advances of modern science, but rather incorporating them into a sensitive, humane, enlightened approach to medical care. With its urgent message and poignant, fascinating vignettes, The Lost Art of Healing is a book of vital, universal importance.

Malignant: How Bad Policy and Bad Evidence Harm People with Cancer


Vinayak K. Prasad - 2020
    Some of these drugs are truly transformative, offering major improvements in how long patients live or how they feel--but what is often missing from the popular narrative is that, far too often, these new drugs have marginal or minimal benefits. Some are even harmful. In Malignant, hematologist-oncologist Dr. Vinayak K. Prasad writes about the many sobering examples of how patients are too often failed by cancer policy and by how oncology is practiced. Throughout this work, Prasad illuminates deceptive practices which- promote novel cancer therapies long before credible data are available to support such treatment; and- exaggerate the potential benefits of new therapies, many of which cost thousands and in some cases hundreds of thousands of dollars.Prasad then critiques the financial conflicts of interest that pervade the oncology field, the pharmaceutical industry, and the US Food and Drug administration.This is a book about how the actions of human beings--our policies, our standards of evidence, and our drug regulation--incentivize the pursuit of marginal or unproven therapies at lofty and unsustainable prices. Prasad takes us through how cancer trials are conducted, how drugs come to market, and how pricing decisions are made, asking how we can ensure that more cancer drugs deliver both greater benefit and a lower price. Ultimately, Prasad says,- more cancer clinical trials should measure outcomes that actually matter to people with cancer;- patients on those trials should look more like actual global citizens;- we need drug regulators to raise, not perpetually lower, the bar for approval; and- we need unbiased patient advocates and experts.This well-written, opinionated, and engaging book explains what we can do differently to make serious and sustained progress against cancer--and how we can avoid repeating the policy and practice mistakes of the past.

The Secret History of the War on Cancer


Devra Davis - 2007
    Left untouched were many of the things known to cause cancer, including tobacco, the workplace, radiation, or the global environment. Proof of how the world in which we live and work affects whether we get cancer was either overlooked or suppressed. This has been no accident. The War on Cancer was run by leaders of industries that made cancer-causing products, and sometimes also profited from drugs and technologies for finding and treating the disease. Filled with compelling personalities and never-before-revealed information, The Secret History of the War on Cancer shows how we began fighting the wrong war, with the wrong weapons, against the wrong enemies-a legacy that persists to this day. This is the gripping story of a major public health effort diverted and distorted for private gain. A portion of the profits from this book will go to support research on cancer prevention.

The Mind-Gut Connection: How the Astonishing Dialogue Taking Place in Our Bodies Impacts Health, Weight, and Mood


Emeran Mayer - 2015
    While the dialogue between the gut and the brain has been recognized by ancient healing traditions, including Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine, Western medicine has failed to appreciate the complexity of how the brain, gut, and more recently, the microbiome—the microorganisms that live inside us—communicate with one another. In The Mind-Gut Connection, Dr. Emeran Mayer, executive director of the UCLA Center for Neurobiology of Stress, offers a revolutionary look at this developing science, teaching us how to harness the power of the mind-gut connection to take charge of our health.The Mind-Gut Connection shows how to keep the brain-gut communication clear and balanced to:• heal the gut by focusing on a plant-based diet• balance the microbiome by consuming fermented foods and probiotics, fasting, and cutting out sugar and processed foods• promote weight loss by detoxifying and creating healthy digestion and maximum nutrient absorption• boost immunity and prevent the onset of neurological diseases such as Parkinson’s andAlzheimer’s• generate a happier mindset and reduce fatigue, moodiness, anxiety, and depression• prevent and heal GI disorders such as leaky gut syndrome, food sensitivities and allergies, and IBS, as well as digestive discomfort such as heartburn and bloating• and much more.

The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity


Nadine Burke Harris - 2018
    Nadine Burke Harris was already known as a crusading physician delivering targeted care to vulnerable children. But it was Diego — a boy who had stopped growing after a sexual assault — who galvanized her journey to uncover the connections between toxic stress and lifelong illnesses.The news of Burke Harris’s research is just how deeply our bodies can be imprinted by ACEs—adverse childhood experiences like abuse, neglect, parental addiction, mental illness, and divorce. Childhood adversity changes our biological systems, and lasts a lifetime.  For anyone who has faced a difficult childhood, or who cares about the millions of children who do, the scientific insight and innovative, acclaimed health interventions in The Deepest Well represent hope for preventing lifelong illness for those we love and for generations to come​.

Priced Out: The Economic and Ethical Costs of American Health Care


Uwe Reinhardt - 2019
    Famously bipartisan, he advised presidents and Congress on health reform and originated central features of the Affordable Care Act. In Priced Out, Reinhardt offers an engaging and enlightening account of today's U.S. health care system, explaining why it costs so much more and delivers so much less than the systems of every other advanced country, why this situation is morally indefensible, and how we might improve it.The problem, Reinhardt says, is not one of economics but of social ethics. There is no American political consensus on a fundamental question other countries settled long ago: to what extent should we be our brothers' and sisters' keepers when it comes to health care? Drawing on the best evidence, he guides readers through the chaotic, secretive, and inefficient way America finances health care, and he offers a penetrating ethical analysis of recent reform proposals. At this point, he argues, the United States appears to have three stark choices: the government can make the rich help pay for the health care of the poor, ration care by income, or control costs. Reinhardt proposes an alternative path: that by age 26 all Americans must choose either to join an insurance arrangement with community-rated premiums, or take a chance on being uninsured or relying on a health insurance market that charges premiums based on health status.An incisive look at the American health care system, Priced Out dispels the confusion, ignorance, myths, and misinformation that hinder effective reform.

The Female Brain


Louann Brizendine - 2006
    Though referenced like a work of research, Brizedine's writing style is fully accessible. Brizendine provides a fascinating look at the life cycle of the female brain from birth ("baby girls will connect emotionally in ways that baby boys don't") to birthing ("Motherhood changes you because it literally alters a woman's brain-structurally, functionally, and in many ways, irreversibly") to menopause (when "the female brain is nowhere near ready to retire") and beyond. At the same time, Brizedine is not above reviewing the basics: "We may think we're a lot more sophisticated than Fred or Wilma Flintstone, but our basic mental outlook and equipment are the same." While this book will be of interest to anyone who wonders why men and women are so different, it will be particularly useful for women and parents of girls.

Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen


Donald Miller - 2017
    This revolutionary method for connecting with customers provides readers with the ultimate competitive advantage, revealing the secret for helping their customers understand the compelling benefits of using their products, ideas, or services. Building a StoryBrand does this by teaching readers the seven universal story points all humans respond to; the real reason customers make purchases; how to simplify a brand message so people understand it; and how to create the most effective messaging for websites, brochures, and social media. Whether you are the marketing director of a multibillion dollar company, the owner of a small business, a politician running for office, or the lead singer of a rock band, Building a StoryBrand will forever transform the way you talk about who you are, what you do, and the unique value you bring to your customers.

Brain Storms: The Race to Unlock the Mysteries of Parkinson's Disease


Jon Palfreman - 2015
    In Brain Storms, the award-winning journalist Jon Palfreman tells their story, a story that became his own when he was diagnosed with the debilitating illness. Palfreman chronicles how scientists have worked to crack the mystery of what was once called the shaking palsy, from the earliest clinical descriptions of tremors, gait freezing, and micrographia to the cutting edge of neuroscience, and charts the victories and setbacks of a massive international effort to best the disease. He takes us back to the late 1950s and the discovery of L-dopa. He delves into a number of other therapeutic approaches to this perplexing condition, from partial lobotomies and deep brain stimulation to neural grafting. And he shares inspiring stories of brave individuals living with Parkinson's, from a former professional ballet dancer who tricks her body to move freely again to a patient who cannot walk but astounds doctors when he is able to ride a bicycle with no trouble at all. With the baby boom generation beginning to retire and the population steadily aging, the race is on to discover a means to stop or reverse neurodegenerative conditions like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Brain Storms is the long-overdue, riveting, and deeply personal story of that race, and a passionate, insightful, and urgent look into the lives of those affected.

The Nurses: A Year of Secrets, Drama, and Miracles with the Heroes of the Hospital


Alexandra Robbins - 2015
    Lara, a superstar nurse who tries to battle her way back from a near-ruinous prescription-drug addiction. The outspoken but compassionate Juliette, a fierce advocate for her patients. And Sam, a first-year nurse, struggling to find her way in a gossipy mean-girl climate she likens to “high school, except for the dying people.”The result is a riveting page-turner, insightful and thought-provoking, that will leave readers feeling smarter about their healthcare and undeniably appreciative of the incredible nurses who provide it.

Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present


Harriet A. Washington - 2007
    Starting with the earliest encounters between black Americans and Western medical researchers and the racist pseudoscience that resulted, it details the ways both slaves and freedmen were used in hospitals for experiments conducted without their knowledge—a tradition that continues today within some black populations. It reveals how blacks have historically been prey to grave-robbing as well as unauthorized autopsies and dissections. Moving into the twentieth century, it shows how the pseudoscience of eugenics and social Darwinism was used to justify experimental exploitation and shoddy medical treatment of blacks, and the view that they were biologically inferior, oversexed, and unfit for adult responsibilities. Shocking new details about the government’s notorious Tuskegee experiment are revealed, as are similar, less-well-known medical atrocities conducted by the government, the armed forces, prisons, and private institutions.The product of years of prodigious research into medical journals and experimental reports long undisturbed, Medical Apartheid reveals the hidden underbelly of scientific research and makes possible, for the first time, an understanding of the roots of the African American health deficit. At last, it provides the fullest possible context for comprehending the behavioral fallout that has caused black Americans to view researchers—and indeed the whole medical establishment—with such deep distrust. No one concerned with issues of public health and racial justice can afford not to read Medical Apartheid, a masterful book that will stir up both controversy and long-needed debate.

How to Work Without Losing Your Mind


Cate Sevilla - 2021
    Cate Sevilla is insightful, inventive and so supportive' Viv Groskop 'Entertaining and practical; moving and funny and, most importantly, a helping hand from someone who's been through it' Emma Gannon, Sunday Times bestselling author 'A timely and provocative book that is at once empathetic about the challenges work presents and empowering on how to overcome them' Bruce Daisley, author of The Joy of Work Bosses are maddening. Colleagues are profoundly irritating. And balancing family and work is daunting. So how do we balance success with sanity? How do we progress without burning out? Whether you're drowning in a toxic working environment, battling burnout, recovering from redundancy, or just struggling to figure out what you actually want from your career, Cate Sevilla is here to help coach you through the shittiness of your work day, and help you shift your relationship with your career.Having worked at giant corporations like Google (where her days consisted of aggressive bosses, complimentary pastries and lots of tears) and scrappy start-ups like The Pool (where she was Editor-in-Chief when it all went pear-shaped), Cate Sevilla has laboured through a lot of stressful and downright ridiculous work situations so that you don't have to. Drawing from lessons learned in her career and interviews with other women, How to Work Without Losing Your Mind is a relatable and reassuring guide to the messy, stressful and sometimes bizarre side of work that everyone experiences but no one talks about. It'll be your tonic after a long, hard working week, where you've ugly cried with your colleagues and are exhausted from endless video calls - and are wondering what the hell to do next.