Book picks similar to
Atul Gawande's Being Mortal: by Ant Hive Media


nonfiction
non-fiction
health
family-relationships

Lean Hospitals: Improving Quality, Patient Safety, and Employee Satisfaction


Mark Graban - 2008
    After highlighting the benefits of Lean methods for patients, employees, physicians, and the hospital itself, he explains how Lean manufacturing staples such as Value Stream Mapping and process observation can help hospital personnel identify and eliminate waste in their own processes -- effectively preventing delays for patients, reducing wasted motion for caregivers, and improving the quality of care.Additionally, Graban describes how Standardized Work and error-proofing can prevent common hospital errors and details root cause problem-solving and daily improvement processes that can engage all personnel in systemic improvement. A unique guide for healthcare professionals, Lean Hospitals clearly elaborates the steps they can take to begin the proactive process of Lean implementation.The book has an accompanying website with more information.Mark Graban was quoted in a July 2010 New York Times article about lean hospitals.*Given the increase in candidates from the health services sector, the Lean Certification and Oversight Appeals committee has approved Lean Hospitals by Mark Graban as recommended reading in pursuit of the Lean Bronze Certification exam.Mark Graban speaks about his book on the CRC Press YouTube channel.

Medical Terminology: A Living Language


Bonnie F. Fremgen - 2004
    For each body system, broad coverage of anatomy, physiology, pathology, diagnostic procedures, treatment procedures, and pharmacology is provided. The author emphasizes both terms built from Latin and Greek word parts, and modern English terms, helping students develop a full working word part vocabulary they can use to interpret any new term. This edition contains many new terms, and has been reorganized for more efficient learning. To eliminate confusion, Word Building tables have been removed from each chapter and the terms have been distributed throughout the pathology, diagnostic procedure, and treatment procedure tables, where they are more immediately relevant to students. Note: This ISBN is just the standalone book, if the customer wants the book/access card order the ISBN below; 133962032 / 9780133962031 Medical Terminology: A Living Language PLUS MyMedicalTerminologyLab with Pearson etext -- Access Card Package Package consists of: 0132843471 / 9780132843478 Medical Terminology: A Living Language 0133936236 / 9780133936230 MyMedicalTerminologyLab with Pearson etext - Access Card - Medical Terminology A Living Language

Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients


Ben Goldacre - 2012
    We like to imagine that it’s based on evidence and the results of fair tests. In reality, those tests are often profoundly flawed. We like to imagine that doctors are familiar with the research literature surrounding a drug, when in reality much of the research is hidden from them by drug companies. We like to imagine that doctors are impartially educated, when in reality much of their education is funded by industry. We like to imagine that regulators let only effective drugs onto the market, when in reality they approve hopeless drugs, with data on side effects casually withheld from doctors and patients.All these problems have been protected from public scrutiny because they’re too complex to capture in a sound bite. But Dr. Ben Goldacre shows that the true scale of this murderous disaster fully reveals itself only when the details are untangled. He believes we should all be able to understand precisely how data manipulation works and how research misconduct on a global scale affects us. In his own words, “the tricks and distortions documented in these pages are beautiful, intricate, and fascinating in their details.” With Goldacre’s characteristic flair and a forensic attention to detail, Bad Pharma reveals a shockingly broken system and calls for something to be done. This is the pharmaceutical industry as it has never been seen before.

How Doctors Think


Jerome Groopman - 2007
    In that short time, many doctors decide on the likely diagnosis and best treatment. Often, decisions made this way are correct, but at crucial moments they can also be wrong -- with catastrophic consequences. In this myth-shattering book, Jerome Groopman pinpoints the forces and thought processes behind the decisions doctors make. Groopman explores why doctors err and shows when and how they can -- with our help -- avoid snap judgments, embrace uncertainty, communicate effectively, and deploy other skills that can profoundly impact our health. This book is the first to describe in detail the warning signs of erroneous medical thinking and reveal how new technologies may actually hinder accurate diagnoses. How Doctors Think offers direct, intelligent questions patients can ask their doctors to help them get back on track.Groopman draws on a wealth of research, extensive interviews with some of the country’s best doctors, and his own experiences as a doctor and as a patient. He has learned many of the lessons in this book the hard way, from his own mistakes and from errors his doctors made in treating his own debilitating medical problems.How Doctors Think reveals a profound new view of twenty-first-century medical practice, giving doctors and patients the vital information they need to make better judgments together.

A Thousand Naked Strangers: A Paramedic's Wild Ride to the Edge and Back


Kevin Hazzard - 2016
    A failed salesman turned local reporter, he wanted to test himself, see how he might respond to pressure and danger. He signed up for emergency medical training and became, at age twenty-six, a newly minted EMT running calls in the worst sections of Atlanta. His life entered a different realm—one of blood, violence, and amazing grace.Thoroughly intimidated at first and frequently terrified, he experienced on a nightly basis the adrenaline rush of walking into chaos. But in his downtime, Kevin reflected on how people’s facades drop away when catastrophe strikes. As his hours on the job piled up, he realized he was beginning to see into the truth of things. There is no pretense five beats into a chest compression, or in an alley next to a crack den, or on a dimly lit highway where cars have collided. Eventually, what had at first seemed impossible happened: Kevin acquired mastery. And in the process he was able to discern the professional differences between his freewheeling peers, what marked each—as he termed them—as “a tourist,” “true believer,” or “killer.”Combining indelible scenes that remind us of life’s fragile beauty with laugh-out-loud moments that keep us smiling through the worst, A Thousand Naked Strangers is an absorbing read about one man’s journey of self-discovery—a trip that also teaches us about ourselves.

One Hundred Days: My Unexpected Journey from Doctor to Patient


David Biro - 2000
    But what if the person receiving the diagnosis--young, physically fit, poised for a bright future--is himself a doctor?At thirty-one David biro has just completed his residency and joined his father's successful dermatology practice. Struck with a rare blood disease that eventually necessitates a bone marrow transplant, Biro relates with honesty and courage the story of his most transforming journey. He is forthright about the advantages that his status as a physician may have afforded him; and yet no such advantage can protect him from the anxiety and doubt brought on by his debilitating therapies. The pressures that Biro's wild "one hundred days" brings to bear on his heretofore well-established identity as a caregiver are enormous--as is the power of this riveting story of survival.

A Taste of My Own Medicine: When the Doctor Is the Patient


Edward E. Rosenbaum - 1988
    "A graphic account of what it's like when a doctor crosses to the other side of the table and becomes a patient himself."—Parade Magazine

The Middle Place


Kelly Corrigan - 2005
    A self-assured adman and former all-American lacrosse player (now part-time coach), he shines brightly, and his daughter appears content to live in his reflected glory.Kelly considers herself lucky for this great touchstone in her life, and her dad's can-do spirit becomes her greatest asset when she's diagnosed with breast cancer as a young mother. It is her dad's pluck and resolve that will see her through the oncoming battles -- including the realization that her "cure" will mean the end of her ability to bear children and her dream of having a large family of her own.Though Kelly writes of her husband and daughters, her mother and her brothers, it is her father's love that sustains her. And so, readers fear for her when she reveals that George has been diagnosed with cancer, too. It is at this nadir, facing not only her own mortality but her father's as well, that Kelly finally begins to emerge as a survivor -- a wife, a mother, and more herself. Yet, she will always be her father's daughter.(Spring 2008 Selection)

Late-Talking Children: A Symptom or a Stage?


Stephen M. Camarata - 2014
    And no delay causes more parental anxiety than late talking, which is associated in many parents' minds with such serious conditions as autism and severe intellectual disability. In fact, as children's speech expert Stephen Camarata points out in this enlightening book, children are late in beginning to talk for a wide variety of reasons. For some children, late talking may be a symptom of other, more serious, problems; for many others, however, it may simply be a stage with no long-term complications.Camarata describes in accessible language what science knows about the characteristics and causes of late talking. He explains that late talking is only one of a constellation of autism symptoms. Although all autistic children are late talkers, not all late-talking children are autistic.Camarata draws on more than twenty-five years of professional experience diagnosing and treating late talkers--and on his personal experience of being a late talker himself and having a late-talking son. He provides information that will help parents navigate the maze of doctors, speech therapists, early childhood services, and special education; and he describes the effect that late talking may have on children's post-talking learning styles.

The Night Shift: Real Life in the Heart of the E.R.


Brian Goldman - 2010
    Brian Goldman is both an emergency room physician at Mount Sinai and a prominent medical journalist. Never one to shy away from controversy, Goldman specializes in kicking open the doors to the medical establishment, revealing what really goes on behind the scenes -- and in the minds of doctors and nurses.In The Night Shift, Goldman shares his experiences in the witching hours at Mount Sinai Hospital in downtown Toronto. We meet the kinds of patients who walk into an ER after midnight: late-night revellers injured on their way home after last call, teens assaulted in the streets by other teens and a woman who punches another woman out of jealousy over a man. But Goldman also reveals the emotional, heartbreaking side of everyday ER visits: adult children forced to make life and death decisions about critically ill parents, victims of sexual assault, and mentally ill and homeless patients looking for understanding and a quick fix in the twenty-four hour waiting room. Written with Goldman's trademark honesty and with surprising humour, The Night Shift is also a frank look at many issues facing the medical profession today, and offers a highly compelling inside view into an often shrouded world.

Life Support: Three Nurses on the Front Lines


Suzanne Gordon - 1997
    Critics everywhere have hailed this book as a classic in the making.

Defeating the Ministers of Death: The compelling story of vaccination, one of medicine's greatest triumphs


David Isaacs - 2020
    In 1919, Spanish flu killed over 50 million people, more than died in both world wars combined. In 1950, an estimated 50 million people caught smallpox worldwide, of whom 10 million died. In 1980, before measles vaccine was widely used, an estimated 2.6 million children died of measles every year. Today we are hostage to a new pandemic disease -the seemingly unstoppable COVID-19.Less than 100 years ago, losing a child to an infection like diphtheria or polio was a dreaded but almost inevitable sorrow faced by all parents, from the richest to the poorest. Today, these killer diseases are almost never seen in industrialised countries, thanks to the development of vaccines. Immunisation has given modern parents peace of mind their ancestors could not imagine.The history of vaccination is rich with trial, error, sabotage and success. It encompasses the tragedy of lives lost, the drama of competition and discovery, the culpability of botched testing, and the triumph of effective, lifelong immunity. Yet with the eradication in the first world of some of humanity's deadliest foes, complacency in some quarters has set in. COVID-19 has us again racing for a vaccine. The story of past achievements and failures helps us keep the race - and the hope - in perspective.This is a book for everyone who wants to understand our past - and cares about our future.PRAISE'Anyone who has doubts about the life-saving miracle of vaccination should read this' Steven Carroll, Sydney Morning Herald'An entertaining and engaging work that is sure to delight general readers' Australian Book Review'The ideal handbook for pregnant women, parents, travellers, childcare and aged-care workers, GPs and anyone with an interest in public health' The Australian'Isaacs explores the understanding of immunity as it develops from the fifth century BC to the present day and thrills us with the progressive successes of each of the 14 vaccines which a child routinely receives today ... The work is authoritative, beguiling, amusing, instructive and inspirational. It deserves a wide readership, including infectious disease experts, other health professionals and, most assuredly, a diversity of lay people' Sir Gustav Nossal, immunologist and director of The Walter and Eliza Institute of Medical Research, Melbourne, 1965-1996'A rollicking story of human endeavour, error, misinformation, success and failure ... and more than a glimpse of why we need to continue to research, evaluate, educate and fund vaccines to prevent disease' Fiona Stanley, Distinguished Research Professor, University of Western Australia'Effortlessly accessible, Defeating the Ministers of Death brilliantly reveals the people behind the most important public health intervention in history' Professor Andrew J Pollard, Department of Paediatrics, University of Oxford'This book is an unflinching look at the triumphs and inevitable tragedies in the war against infectious diseases. Nonfiction is at its best when it reads like fiction. And David Isaacs has written a page turner' Paul A. Offit, MD, author of Bad Advice: Or Why Celebrities, Politicians, and Activists Aren't Your Best Source of Health Information

When the Air Hits Your Brain: Tales of Neurosurgery


Frank T. Vertosick Jr. - 1996
    In other words, by all of us."--Dr. Bernie Siegel, author of Love, Medicine and MiraclesRule One for the neurologist in residence: "You ain't never the same when the air hits your brain." In this fascinating book, Dr. Frank Vertosick brings that fact to life through intimate portraits of patients and unsparing yet gripping descriptions of brain surgery.With insight, humor, and poignancy, Dr. Vertosick chronicles his remarkable evolution from naive young intern to world-class neurosurgeon, where he faced, among other challenges, a six week-old infant with a tumor in her brain, a young man struck down in his prime by paraplegia, and a minister with a .22 caliber bullet lodged in his skull. In candid detail, WHEN THE AIR HITS YOUR BRAIN illuminates both the mysteries of the mind and the realities of the operating room."Riveting."--Publishers Weekly

The End of Food Allergy: The First Program to Prevent and Reverse a 21st Century Epidemic


Kari Nadeau - 2020
    But this book offers the first glimpse of hope with a powerful message: You can work with your family and your doctor to eliminate your food allergy forever.The trailblazing research of Dr. Kari Nadeau at Stanford University reveals that food allergy is not a life sentence, because the immune system can be retrained. Food allergies--from mild hives to life-threatening airway constriction--can be disrupted, slowed, and stopped. The key is a strategy called immunotherapy (IT)--the controlled, gradual reintroduction of an allergen into the body. With innovations that include state-of-the-art therapies targeting specific components of the immune system, Dr. Nadeau and her team have increased the speed and effectiveness of this treatment to a matter of months.New York Times bestselling author Sloan Barnett, the mother of two children with food allergies, provides a lay perspective that helps make Dr. Nadeau's research accessible for everyone. Together, they walk readers through every aspect of food allergy, including how to find the right treatment and how to manage the ongoing fear of allergens that haunts so many sufferers, to give us a clear, supportive plan to combat a major national and global health issue.

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