Showing titles in Physician & Patient

In gripping prose, one of the world's leading cardiac surgeons lays bare both the wonder and the horror of a life spent a heartbeat away from death. When Stephen Westaby witnessed a patient die on the table during open-heart surgery for the first time, he was struck by the quiet, determined way the surgeons walked away. As he soon understood, this detachment is a crucial survival strategy in a profession where death is only a heartbeat away. In Open Heart, Westaby reflects on over 11,000 surgeries, showing us why the procedures have never become routine and will never be.

For two decades, Dr. Danielle Ofri has cared for patients at Bellevue, the oldest public hospital in the country and a crossroads for the world's cultures. In Medicine in Translation she introduces us, in vivid, moving portraits, to her patients, who have braved language barriers, religious and racial divides, and the emotional and practical difficulties of exile in order to access quality health care.

Learn how big Pharma sells drugs by faking their studies. Understand the lies they stuff into websites and medical journals. Learn why it all gets ignored (hint: Pharma has the largest criminal settlements in history). Learn how to conquer healthcare costs. Medical spending per person is double that of other countries and it is the top reason for US personal bankruptcy. I will show you how to escape the over-billing and prosper anyway.

No one could believe the handsome young doctor might be a serial killer. Wherever he was hired - in Ohio, Illinois, New York, South Dakota - Michael Swango at first seemed the model physician. Then his patients began dying under suspicious circumstances.

From Dr. Rosanne M. Leipzig, a top doctor with more than thirty-five years of experience caring for older people, Honest Aging is an indispensable guide to the second half of life, describing what to expect physically, psychologically, functionally, and emotionally as you age.

While modern medicine produces miracles, it also delivers care that is too often unsafe, unreliable, unsatisfying, and impossibly expensive. For the past few decades, technology has been touted as the cure for all of healthcare's ills. But medicine stubbornly resisted computerization - until now. Over the past five years, thanks largely to billions of dollars in federal incentives, health care has finally gone digital.

While much has been written about the minds and methods of the medical professionals who save our lives, precious little has been said about their emotions. Physicians are assumed to be objective, rational beings, easily able to detach as they guide patients and families through some of life’s most challenging moments. But understanding doctors’ emotional responses to the life-and-death dramas of everyday practice can make all the difference on giving and getting the best medical care.

A young father with a rare form of lung cancer who has been turned down for a transplant by several hospitals. A kid considered not “smart enough” to be worthy of a transplant. A young mother dying on the waiting list in front of her two small children. A father losing his oldest daughter after a transplant goes awry. The nights waiting for donor lungs to become available, understanding that someone needed to die so that another patient could live. These are some of the stories in this memoir about Dr. Weill’s 10 years spent directing the lung transplant program at Stanford.

When it comes to helping patients manage chronic and acute conditions and make healthier choices in such areas as medication adherence, smoking, diet, and preventive care, good advice alone is not enough. By using MI techniques, doctors, nurses, and other providers can transform conversations about change. The book shows how even the briefest clinical interaction can serve to build trust, clarify patients' goals as well as reasons for ambivalence, and guide them to take positive steps.

From registered nurse and public health advocate Sana Goldberg, RN, a timely, accessible, and comprehensive handbook to navigating common medical situations. From the routine to the unexpected, How to Be a Patient is your ultimate guide to better health care.

Facing the prospect of a career-ending disability as she adjusts to life with multiple sclerosis, Dr. Lisa Doggett is forced to deal with a new level of uncertainty and vulnerability, and the everyday fear that something new will go wrong. Taking off her white coat—becoming a patient herself—she confronts unimaginable fears, copes with her limitations, and sidesteps her skepticism of alternative medicine to seek help from unlikely sources. MS pushes Doggett—a perfectionist at heart—to embrace self-compassion.

In 1949, Ron Losee, a young Yale Medical School graduate, headed west with his wife and small daughter to begin the practice of medicine. They settled in Ennis, Montana, in a log cabin that also became their office and lab. Patients made themselves at home in the living room. One small bag held all their medical equipment. It was a proud moment when a patient first called Losee "Doc." His fee on that occasion was three dollars.

In the quarter century that Victoria Sweet has been a doctor, "health care" has replaced medicine, "providers" (vastly outnumbered by administrators) look at their laptops more than at their patients, and the ruthless pursuit of efficiency has vanquished not only trust and intimacy but also, often, the effectiveness of treatment. Victoria Sweet knows that there is an alternative way, because she has lived and practiced it. In her new book, she reflects with compassion, wit, and profound insight.

Being a physician is challenging. So is starting your own business. In Entrepreneur Rx, physician and serial entrepreneur, Dr. John Shufeldt, shares time-tested insights and knowledge for building a thriving startup while maintaining your practice. From identifying winning business ideas to raising necessary capital, Dr. Shufeldt offers a comprehensive insider’s view into strategies that have helped him develop and nurture a number of successful businesses (including two valued at more than $100 million).

An epic story told by a unique voice in Ameri­can medicine, One Doctor describes life-changing experiences in the career of a distinguished physi­cian. In riveting first-person prose, Dr. Brendan Reilly takes us to the front lines of medicine today.

In Physician Leadership, renowned medical leader Dr. Karen J. Nichols delivers a concise guide for busy physicians doing their best to successfully lead people and organizations. The book covers foundational leadership essentials that every physician needs to master to transform themselves from a highly motivated novice leader into an effective, skilled, and productive leader.

Dr. Erika Schwartz believes that today's patient is but a leaf blowing in the wind of groupthink protocols, corrupt medical societies, insurance companies on the take, and billions of dollars in marketing and lobbying pressure from drug companies. What is the quick fix? The answers are here in 10 clear chapters, giving examples every step of the way. It's a simple process that takes you, the patient, from being a victim to being in charge.

In his exceptionally thought-provoking and moving memoir, neurosurgeon Joseph D. Stern explores how personal loss influences the way physicians relate to patients and their families.

Dr. Aoife Abbey takes us beyond the medical perspective to see the humanity at work inside our hospitals through the eyes of doctors and nurses as they witness and experience the full spectrum of human emotion with every shift. It is their responsibility to mitigate the grief of a family in mourning, calm a patient about to die, and confront their own fear of failure when lives are on the line.

A collection of the most memorable moments from old-school rural physicians who each practiced medicine for more than 50 years in the Southern Appalachian Mountains. Hilarious, heroic, heartwarming true stories of miracle cures, ghost dogs, and much madcap medical mayhem.