Sherry Lynn Jones has been an Emergency Medical Technician, Emergency Room Nurse, prison healthcare practitioner, and an on-scene critical incident debriefer. Most people who have observed or experienced physical, mental or emotional crisis have single perspectives. This book allows readers to stand on both sides of the gurney; it details a progression from innocence to enlightened caregiver to burnout, glimpsing into each stage personally and professionally. "Corrections" the third realm of emergency care behind layers of concrete and barbed wire. Join in the dangers, challenges, and truth-is-stranger-than-fiction humor of this updated and revised second edition of Confessions of a Trauma Junkie. In addition to stories from the streets and ERs, medics, nurses, and corrections officers share perceptions and coping skills from the other side of prisons' cuffs and clanging metal door.

    Writer, M.D. celebrates this rich tradition with a collection of fiction and nonfiction by today’s most beloved physician-writers, including,• Abraham Verghese, on the lost art of the physical exam• Pauline Chen, on the bond between a med student and her first cadaver• Atul Gawande, on the ethical dilemmas of a young surgical intern• Danielle Ofri, on the devastation of losing a patient• Ethan Canin, on love, poetry, and growing oldThese essays and stories illuminate the inner lives of men and women who deal with trauma, illness, mortality, and grief on a daily basis. Read together, they provide a candid, moving, one-of-a-kind glimpse behind the doctor’s mask.

    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.

    Sam Parnia faces death every day. Through his work as a critical-care doctor in a hospital emergency room, he became very interested in some of his patients’ accounts of the experiences that they had while clinically dead. He started to collect these stories and read all the latest research on the subject, and then he decided to conduct his own experiments. That work has culminated in this extraordinary book, which picks up where Raymond Moody’s &I left off.           Written in a scientific, balanced, and engaging style, this is powerful and compelling reading.This fascinating and controversial book will change the way you look at death and dying. . . .

    First came hot flashes. Then insomnia. Then depression. As she struggled to express what was happening to her, she came up against a culture of silence. Throughout history, the natural physical transition of menopause has been viewed as something to deny, fear, and eradicate. Menstruation signals fertility and life, and childbirth is revered as the ultimate expression of womanhood. Menopause is seen as a harbinger of death. Some books Steinke found promoted hormone replacement therapy. Others encouraged acceptance. But Steinke longed to understand menopause in a more complex, spiritual, and intellectually engaged way.In Flash Count Diary, Steinke writes frankly about aspects of Menopause that have rarely been written about before. She explores the changing gender landscape that comes with reduced hormone levels, and lays bare the transformation of female desire and the realities of prejudice against older women. Weaving together her personal story with philosophy, science, art, and literature, Steinke reveals that in the seventeenth century, women who had hot flashes in front of others could be accused of being witches; that the model for Duchamp's famous �tant donn�s was a post-reproductive woman; and that killer whales--one of the only other species on earth to undergo menopause--live long post-reproductive lives.Flash Count Diary, with its deep research, open play of ideas, and reverence for the female body, will change the way you think about menopause. It's a deeply feminist book--honest about the intimations of mortality that menopause brings while also arguing for the ascendancy, beauty, and power of the post-reproductive years.

    He enjoyed a successful career and drew happiness from his wife, children, family and close friends. Then in May 2005, Gene was diagnosed with late-stage brain cancer. This is his account of his final journey.

    One MRI later, she is diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and told to pick a drug and accept her fate. Instead Jody starts asking questions--only to receive a different diagnosis from each specialist she turns to, from vitamin deficiencies to metal toxicity to depression.In this powerful, witty, and eye-opening account of her misadventures from misdiagnosis to miraculous recovery, Jody offers insightful tips on how to ask doctors the right questions to get the answers and treatment you need, listen to your body, and choose health over illness. After all, while we can't always heal, we can always take control of our health and ourselves--starting now.

    When a small vial arrives in her mailbox from "Lewis Carroll," Ayelet Waldman is at a low point. Her mood storms have become intolerably severe; she has tried nearly every medication possible; her husband and children are suffering with her. So she opens the vial, places two drops on her tongue, and joins the ranks of an underground but increasingly vocal group of scientists and civilians successfully using therapeutic microdoses of LSD. As Waldman charts her experience over the course of a month--bursts of productivity, sleepless nights, a newfound sense of equanimity--she also explores the history and mythology of LSD, the cutting-edge research into the drug, and the byzantine policies that control it. Drawing on her experience as a federal public defender, and as the mother of teenagers, and her research into the therapeutic value of psychedelics, Waldman has produced a book that is eye-opening, often hilarious, and utterly enthralling.

    But it's not, perhaps, the story you expect.Gavin Francis is a GP who works in both urban and rural communities, splitting his time between Edinburgh and the islands of Orkney. When the pandemic ripped through our society he saw how it affected every walk of life: the anxious teenager, the isolated care home resident, the struggling furloughed worker and homeless ex-prisoner, all united by their vulnerability in the face of a global disaster. And he saw how the true cost of the virus was measured not just in infections, or deaths, or ITU beds, but in the consequences of the measures taken against it.In this deeply personal account of nine months spent caring for a society in crisis, Francis will take you from rural village streets to local clinics and communal city stairways. And in telling this story, he reveals others: of loneliness and hope, illness and recovery, and of what we can achieve when we care for each other.

    Last Wish is an intimate, fiercely honest memoir of a daughter's struggle to come to terms with her terminally ill mother's decision to die. More than a examination of the ethical, spiritual, and technical aspects of assisted suicide, Last Wish is also a celebration of Rollin's imperfect family, a passionate testament to her mother's character and courage, and a compelling argument for the right of the terminally ill to a humane and dignified death. The PublicAffairs paperback edition includes a new foreword, questions for thought and discussion, and a helpful resource guide.

    Dark, humorous, honest, and compassionate, this memoir illustrates the incredible work nurses do and the many challenges they face. A tribute to the wonderfully brave people Chambers met during her career, this book portrays both joyous and difficult experiences.

    These periods of dislocation can be lonely and unexpected. For May, her husband fell ill, her son stopped attending school, and her own medical issues led her to leave a demanding job. Wintering explores how she not only endured this painful time, but embraced the singular opportunities it offered.A moving personal narrative shot through with lessons from literature, mythology, and the natural world, May’s story offers instruction on the transformative power of rest and retreat. Illumination emerges from many sources: solstice celebrations and dormice hibernation, C.S. Lewis and Sylvia Plath, swimming in icy waters and sailing arctic seas.Ultimately Wintering invites us to change how we relate to our own fallow times. May models an active acceptance of sadness and finds nourishment in deep retreat, joy in the hushed beauty of winter, and encouragement in understanding life as cyclical, not linear. A secular mystic, May forms a guiding philosophy for transforming the hardships that arise before the ushering in of a new season.

    We have only known this life, so dying scares us—and we are all dying. But what if dying were perfectly safe? What would it look like if you could approach dying with curiosity and love, in service of other beings? What if dying were the ultimate spiritual practice?   Ram Dass and Mirabai Bush began their friendship more than four decades ago at the foot of their guru, Neem Karoli Baba, also known as Maharaj-ji. He transmitted to them a simple philosophy: love everyone, tell the truth, and give up attachment to material things. After impacting millions of people through the years with these teachings, they have reunited once more with Walking Each Other Home to enlighten and engage readers on the spiritual opportunities within the dying process. They generously share intimate personal experiences and timeless practices, told with courage, humor, and heart, gently exploring every aspect of this journey. And, at 86 years old, Ram Dass reminds us, “This time we have a real deadline.”   In Walking Each Other Home, readers will learn about: guidelines for being a “loving rock” for the dying, how to grieve fully and authentically, how to transform a fear of death, leaving a spiritual legacy, creating a sacred space for dying, and much more.   “Everybody you have ever loved is a part of the fabric of your being now,” says Ram Dass. The body may die, but the soul remains. Death is an invitation to a new kind of relationship, in the place where we are all One. Join these two lifelong friends and spiritual luminaries as they explore what it means to live and die consciously, remember who we really are, and illuminate the path we walk together.

    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.

    . . Sanghavi is a vivid and effortless teller of human tales and quite evidently a special doctor, too." —Atul Gawande, author of ComplicationsIn this compelling book, Dr. Darshak Sanghavi takes the reader on a dramatic tour of a child's eight vital organs, beginning with the lungs and proceeding through the heart, blood, bones, brain, skin, gonads, and gut.Along the way, we meet children and families in extraordinary circumstances—a premature baby named Adam Flax who was born with undeveloped lungs, a teenage boy with a positive pregnancy test, and a young girl who keeps losing weight despite her voracious appetite. In a deeply personal narrative, Sanghavi provides a richly detailed—and humanized—portrait of how the pediatric body functions in both sickness and health.