In that same rotation, Epstein was awestruck by another surgeon’s ability to avert an impending disaster, slowing down from autopilot to intentionality. The difference between these two doctors left a lasting impression on Epstein and set the stage for his life’s work—to identify the qualities and habits that distinguish masterful doctors from those who are merely competent. The secret, he learned, was mindfulness. In Attending, his first book, Dr. Epstein builds on his world-renowned, innovative programs in mindful practice and uses gripping and deeply human clinical stories to give patients a language to describe what they value most in health care and to outline a road map for doctors and other health care professionals to refocus their approach to medicine. Drawing on his clinical experiences and current research, and exploring four foundations of mindfulness—Attention, Curiosity, Beginner’s Mind, and Presence—Dr. Epstein introduces a revolutionary concept: by looking inward, health care practitioners can grow their capacity to provide high-quality care and the resilience to be there when their patients need them. The commodification of health care has shifted doctors’ focus away from the healing of patients to the bottom line. Clinician burnout is at an all-time high. Attending is the antidote. With compassion and intelligence, Epstein offers a crucial, timely book that shows us how we can restore humanity to medicine, guides us toward a better overall quality of care, and reminds us of what matters most.

    In bulleted lists, tables, and algorithms, Pocket Medicine provides key clinical information about common problems in cardiology, pulmonology, gastroenterology, nephrology, hematology-oncology, infectious diseases, endocrinology, rheumatology, and neurology.The six-ring binder resembles the familiar "pocket brain" notebook that most students and interns carry and allows users to add notes. This Third Edition is fully updated, has tabs to help readers locate organ systems, and has more cross-referencing in the index. It also has pockets in the front and the back of the book to accommodate the reader's own notes.

    This new edition includes an all-embracing and incisive afterword that examines the current state of health care and our relationship with life as it approaches its terminus. It also discusses how we can take control of our own final days and those of our loved ones.Shewin Nuland's masterful How We Die is even more relevant than when it was first published.

    It is the story of two nurses who witnessed the early years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic from the frontline. It focuses on their lives and their experiences. Some of the story is raw, sometimes graphic, but familiar for people with HIV infection, family members, friends, and other nurses and medical professionals such as Ellen and Valery. There were hundreds of nurses who went through what Ellen and Valery experienced. They want to tell this story to give a voice to a generation lost, encouraging the world to remember one simple thing: this history cannot be repeated.

    Ballet dancers and rock musicians, professors and thieves-"anyone who had fallen, or, often, leapt, onto hard times" and needed extended medical care-ended up here. So did Victoria Sweet, who came for two months and stayed for twenty years. Laguna Honda, lower tech but human paced, gave Sweet the opportunity to practice a kind of attentive medicine that has almost vanished. Gradually, the place transformed the way she understood her work. Alongside the modern view of the body as a machine to be fixed, her extraordinary patients evoked an older idea, of the body as a garden to be tended. God's Hotel tells their story and the story of the hospital itself, which, as efficiency experts, politicians, and architects descended, determined to turn it into a modern "health care facility," revealed its own surprising truths about the essence, cost, and value of caring for body and soul.

    

    Illnesses that once were a death sentence, such as HIV and certain forms of cancer, can now be managed, allowing those affected to live longer, healthier lives. Because of these advances, we now live 30 years longer than we did 100 years ago.In this game-changing book, Dr. Paul A. Offit debunks fifteen common medical interventions that have long been considered gospel despite mounting evidence of their adverse effects, from vitamins, sunscreen, fever-reducing medicines, and eyedrops for pink eye to more serious procedures like heart stents and knee surgery. Analyzing how these practices came to be, the biology of what makes them so ineffective and harmful, and the medical culture that continues to promote them, Overkill informs patients to help them advocate for their health. By educating ourselves, we can ask better questions about some of the drugs and surgeries that are all too readily available—and all too heavily promoted.

    But as it is often said nothing ever really happened unless it is written down. There are so many stories to tell of the agonies and triumphs of both doctors and patients, who have peopled this venerable institution through the ages. I wrote the stories because I firmly believe that healing is a mutual process; that the healer is very often himself healed as he goes about caring for the ailing person. So the stories bite both ways.”

    The DOs chronicles the development of this controversial medical movement from the nineteenth century to the present. Historian Norman Gevitz describes the philosophy and practice of osteopathy, as well as its impact on medical care. From the theories underlying the use of spinal manipulation developed by osteopathy's founder, Andrew Taylor Still, Gevitz traces the movement's early success, despite attacks from the orthodox medical community, and details the internal struggles to broaden osteopathy's scope to include the full range of pharmaceuticals and surgery. He also recounts the efforts of osteopathic colleges to achieve parity with institutions granting M.D. degrees and looks at the continuing effort by osteopathic physicians and surgeons to achieve greater recognition and visibility.In print continuously since 1982, The DOs has now been thoroughly updated and expanded to include two new chapters addressing recent and current challenges and to bring the history of the profession up to the beginning of the new millennium.

    As corporations seek to save money and government agencies aim to increase constituent access, minimum qualifications for the guardians of our nation’s healthcare continue to decline—with deadly consequences. This is a story that has not yet been told, and one that has dangerous repercussions for all Americans.

    The book has the hallmark features for which Lippincott's Illustrated Reviews volumes are so popular: an outline format, over 600 full-color illustrations, end-of-chapter summaries, review questions, plus an entire section of clinical case studies with full-color illustrations. This edition's medical/clinical focus has been sharpened to provide a high-yield review. Five additional case studies have been included, bringing the total to nineteen. Review questions have been reformatted to comply with USMLE Step 1 style, with clinical vignettes.

    It is William Nolen's story of his transformation from student to practitioner, from a brash medical school graduate to a surgeon possessing skill and judgment. And, as happens in the best memoirs, with his brilliant flash of self-discovery William Nolen illuminates the world outside himself.First published in 1970, The Making of a Surgeon received critical acclaim and touched a world audience. The book's universal themes propelled it to the rarefied heights of a best seller. In this reprinted edition, with a foreword by the author's daughter, his classic returns.

    Medical care is in crisis, we are repeatedly told, and so it is. Barely one in five Americans thinks the medical system works well. Enter David M. Cutler, a Harvard economist who served on President Clinton's health care task force and later advised presidential candidate Bill Bradley. One of the nation's leading experts on the subject, Cutler argues in Your Money or Your Life that health care has in fact improvedexponentially over the last fifty years, and that the successes of our system suggest ways in which we might improve care, make the system easier to deal with, and extend coverage to all Americans. Cutler applies an economic analysis to show that our spending on medicine is well worth it--and thatwe could do even better by spending more. Further, millions of people with easily manageable diseases, from hypertension to depression to diabetes, receive either too much or too little care because of inefficiencies in the way we reimburse care, resulting in poor health and in some cases prematuredeath. The key to improving the system, Cutler argues, is to change the way we organize health care. Everyone must be insured for the medical system to perform well, and payments should be based on the quality of services provided not just on the amount of cutting and poking performed. Lively and compelling, Your Money or Your Life offers a realistic yet rigorous economic approach to reforming health care--one that promises to break through the stalemate of failed reform.

    In 2005, Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, unveiled a new state-of-theart, multimillion-dollar cancer center. Determined to understand the whole spectrum of factors that determine what kind of medical care people receive in this country, bestselling author Julie Salamon spent one year tracking the progress of the center and getting to know the characters who make the hospital run. Located in a community where sixty-seven different languages are spoken, Maimonides is a case study for the particular kinds of concerns that arise in institutions that serve an increasingly multicultural American demographic. Granted an astonishing “warts and all” level of access by the hospital higher-ups, Salamon followed the doctors, patients, administrators, nurses, ambulance drivers, cooks, and cleaning staff. She explored not just the action on the ground—what happens between doctors and patients—but also the financial, ethical, technological, sociological, and cultural matters that the hospital community encounters every day. Drawing on her skills as interviewer, observer, and social critic, Salamon presents the story of modern medicine, uniquely viewed from the vantage point of those who make it run. She draws out the internal and external political machinations that exist between doctors and staff as well as between hospital and community. And she grounds the science and emotion of medical drama in the financial realities of operating a huge, private institution that must contend with issues like adapting to the specific needs of immigrant groups that make up a large and growing portion of our society. Salamon exposes struggles of both the profound and humdrum variety. There are bitter internal feuds, warm personal connections, comedy, egoism, greed, love, and loss. There are rabbinic edicts to contend with as well as imams and herbalists and local politicians. There are system foul-ups that keep blood test results from being delivered on time, careless record keepers, shortages of everything except forms to fill, recalcitrant and greedy insurance reimbursement systems, and the surprising difficulty of getting doctors to wash their hands. This is the dynamic universe of small and large concerns and personalities that, taken together, determine the nature of our care and assume the utmost importance. As Martin Payson—chairman of the board at Maimonides and ex-Time-Warner vice chairman—puts it: “Hospitals have a lot in common with the movie business. You’ve got your talent, entrepreneurs, ambition, ego stroking, the business versus the creative part. The big difference is that in the hospital you don’t get second takes. Movies are make-believe. This is real life.”

    An intern makes his first cut and is ridiculed by his tutor. An old woman is brought back to life against her will, only for the unexpected to strike a week later. A notorious surgeon is driven crazy by a massive brain tumour. The mother of a leukemia-ridden child is driven to desperation... In this compelling and beautifully written impressionistic memoir, Mohamed Khadra recounts stories from his life as a surgeon, from the gruelling years of training to the debilitating sleepless nights on call. He looks back at the doctors and patients who shaped his career; at the endless stream of humanity - courageous, pitiful, admirable and dislikable - who passed under his knife, as he recalls shocking tales of mistakes in theatre and the shattered lives of doctors defeated by the stresses of the job. Documenting the soul-destroying choices made for patients and the misplaced hope so common in the face of death, his dramatic account of a surgical life shows what happens when extraordinary events overtake everyday lives - including, even, his own.