Download or read book Unwell Women written by Elinor Cleghorn and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A trailblazing, conversation-starting history of women’s health—from the earliest medical ideas about women’s illnesses to hormones and autoimmune diseases—brought together in a fascinating sweeping narrative. Elinor Cleghorn became an unwell woman ten years ago. She was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease after a long period of being told her symptoms were anything from psychosomatic to a possible pregnancy. As Elinor learned to live with her unpredictable disease she turned to history for answers, and found an enraging legacy of suffering, mystification, and misdiagnosis. In Unwell Women, Elinor Cleghorn traces the almost unbelievable history of how medicine has failed women by treating their bodies as alien and other, often to perilous effect. The result is an authoritative and groundbreaking exploration of the relationship between women and medical practice, from the "wandering womb" of Ancient Greece to the rise of witch trials across Europe, and from the dawn of hysteria as a catchall for difficult-to-diagnose disorders to the first forays into autoimmunity and the shifting understanding of hormones, menstruation, menopause, and conditions like endometriosis. Packed with character studies and case histories of women who have suffered, challenged, and rewritten medical orthodoxy—and the men who controlled their fate—this is a revolutionary examination of the relationship between women, illness, and medicine. With these case histories, Elinor pays homage to the women who suffered so strides could be made, and shows how being unwell has become normalized in society and culture, where women have long been distrusted as reliable narrators of their own bodies and pain. But the time for real change is long overdue: answers reside in the body, in the testimonies of unwell women—and their lives depend on medicine learning to listen.
Download or read book Stellar Medicine written by Saralyn Mark and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An endocrinologist, geriatrician, and woman's health specialist, Mark was the first senior medical advisor to the Office on Women's Health within the Department of Health and Human Services. She presents a framework of science and experience to encourage both women and men to live a balanced life and to help maintain wellness even in the face of stress and trouble.
Download or read book My Degeneration written by Peter Dunlap-Shohl and published by Penn State Press. This book was released on 2015-11-08 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How does one deal with a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease at the age of forty-three? My Degeneration, by former Anchorage Daily News staff cartoonist Peter Dunlap-Shohl, answers the question with humor and passion, recounting the author’s attempt to come to grips with the “malicious whimsy” of this chronic, progressive, and disabling disease. This graphic novel tracks Dunlap-Shohl’s journey through depression, the worsening symptoms of the disease, the juggling of medications and their side effects, the impact on relations with family and community, and the raft of mental and physical changes wrought by the malady. My Degeneration examines the current state of Parkinson’s care, including doctor/patient relations and the repercussions of a disease that, among other things, impairs movement, can rob patients of their ability to speak or write, degrades sufferers’ ability to deal with complexity, and interferes with the sense of balance. Readers learn what it’s like to undergo a dramatic, demanding, and audacious bit of high-tech brain surgery that can mysteriously restore much of a patient’s control over symptoms. But My Degeneration is more than a Parkinson’s memoir. Dunlap-Shohl gives the person newly diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease the information necessary to cope with it on a day-to-day basis. He chronicles the changes that life with the disease can bring to the way one sees the world and the way one is seen by the wider community. Dunlap-Shohl imparts a realistic basis for hope—hope not only to carry on, but to enjoy a decent quality of life.
Download or read book Nine Pints written by Rose George and published by Metropolitan Books. This book was released on 2018-10-23 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist: A “compelling chronicle” of the science, politics, and business of blood (The Wall Street Journal). Blood carries life, yet the sight of it makes people faint. It is a waste product and a commodity pricier than oil. It can save lives and transmit deadly infections. Each one of us has roughly nine pints of it, yet many don’t even know their own blood type. And for all its ubiquitousness, the few tablespoons of blood discharged by 800 million women are still regarded as taboo: menstruation is perhaps the single most demonized biological event. Rose George, author of The Big Necessity, takes us from ancient practices of bloodletting to the breakthrough of the “liquid biopsy,” which promises to diagnose cancer and other diseases with a simple blood test. She introduces Janet Vaughan, who set up the world’s first system of mass blood donation during the Blitz, and Arunachalam Muruganantham, known as “Menstrual Man” for his work on sanitary pads for developing countries. She probes the lucrative business of plasma transfusions, in which the US is known as the “OPEC of plasma.” And she looks to the future, as researchers seek to bring synthetic blood to a hospital near you. Spanning science and politics, individual’s stories and global epidemics, Nine Pints reveals our life’s blood in an entirely new light. One of Bill Gates’ Recommended Summer Reading Titles “Stellar . . . An informative, elegant, and provocative exploration of the life-giving substance . . . A wondrously well-written work.” —Booklist (starred review) Both fascinating and informative . . . George packs her book with the kinds of provocative, witty, and rigorously reported facts and stories sure to make readers view the integral fluid coursing through our veins in a whole new way.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “George charges down wholly unexpected avenues of medical history and global injustice, leaving the reader by turns giddy and appalled. And always, always in awe of the writing.” —Mary Roach, author of Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War “A very good book.” —The New York Times
Download or read book Medicine Miracles and Manifestations written by John L. Turner and published by Red Wheel/Weiser. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During his career as a board-certified surgeon, Dr. John L. Turner's curiosity drove him to explore nontraditional healing techniques that broadened the scope of recovery for his patients, including energy healing, soul travel, astral projection, chanting, and meditation.
Download or read book Old and Sick in America written by Muriel R. Gillick, M.D. and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2017-10-06 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the introduction of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, the American health care system has steadily grown in size and complexity. Muriel R. Gillick takes readers on a narrative tour of American health care, incorporating the stories of older patients as they travel from the doctor's office to the hospital to the skilled nursing facility, and examining the influence of forces as diverse as pharmaceutical corporations, device manufacturers, and health insurance companies on their experience. A scholar who has practiced medicine for over thirty years, Gillick offers readers an informed and straightforward view of health care from the ground up, revealing that many crucial medical decisions are based not on what is best for the patient but rather on outside forces, sometimes to the detriment of patient health and quality of life. Gillick suggests a broadly imagined patient-centered reform of the health care system with Medicare as the engine of change, a transformation that would be mediated through accountability, cost-effectiveness, and culture change.
Download or read book Medicine Unbundled written by Gary Geddes and published by Heritage House Publishing Co. This book was released on 2017-02-15 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "We can no longer pretend we don't know about residential schools, murdered and missing Aboriginal women and 'Indian hospitals.' The only outstanding question is how we respond." —Tom Sandborn, Vancouver Sun A shocking exposé of the dark history and legacy of segregated Indigenous health care in Canada. After the publication of his critically acclaimed 2011 book Drink the Bitter Root: A Writer’s Search for Justice and Healing in Africa, author Gary Geddes turned the investigative lens on his own country, embarking on a long and difficult journey across Canada to interview Indigenous elders willing to share their experiences of segregated health care, including their treatment in the "Indian hospitals" that existed from coast to coast for over half a century. The memories recounted by these survivors—from gratuitous drug and surgical experiments to electroshock treatments intended to destroy the memory of sexual abuse—are truly harrowing, and will surely shatter any lingering illusions about the virtues or good intentions of our colonial past. Yet, this is more than just the painful history of a once-so-called vanishing people (a people who have resisted vanishing despite the best efforts of those in charge); it is a testament to survival, perseverance, and the power of memory to keep history alive and promote the idea of a more open and just future. Released to coincide with the Year of Reconciliation (2017), Medicine Unbundled is an important and timely contribution to our national narrative.
Download or read book The End of Healing written by Jim Bailey and published by Healthy City. This book was released on 2014-09-11 with total page 507 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Jim Bailey's brilliant first novel narrates the journey of a young healer into the depths of a modern healthcare hell that parallels the path taken by Dante Alighieri through his "Inferno" 700 years ago. His young protagonist uncovers unsuspected corruption at the roots of the problems in American medicine and powerful business interests trading people's health for profit. "The End of Healing" is a must-read for anyone hungry for a spiritual context to help them understand the true forces at work in American healthcare and our path to a better future...." -PHYLLIS TICKLE, founding religion editor, "Publishers Weekly." ""The End of Healing" is a remarkable book. It'll make you sad and angry at the same time. Then you'll become afraid.... And that fear could save your life." -DON DONALDSON, author of "The Memory Thief." "THE END OF HEALING," A GRIPPING HISTORICAL NOVEL SET IN THE BEGINNING OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM, SHINES THE LIGHT OF TRUTH ON THE MEDICAL INDUSTRY. A looming menace lurks within the towers of American medicine. One young doctor is determined to uncover the truth. Enter the inferno with him on a journey you will never forget. Don Newman, a resident physician at the renowned University Hospital, awakens to the screams of his pager in a windowless call room in the middle of the night. He runs to the dark ward to attend to a dying woman strapped to a bed and realizes-despite working long and hard to become a doctor and having sworn to do no harm-harm has become his business. So begins Dr. Newman's quest to become a healer in a system that puts profits ahead of patients. He abandons his plans to become a cardiologist and enrolls in an Ivy League graduate program in health system science, where an unorthodox professor promises to guide him ever deeper into the dark secrets of the healthcare industry. Don joins fellow students-the alluring Frances Hunt, a sharp nurse practitioner, and Bruce Markum, a cocky, well-connected surgeon-on a journey through the medical underworld. When Dr. Newman unearths evidence of a conspiracy stretching from the halls of Congress to Wall Street and even to his small campus, his harmless course of study becomes deadly serious. Will he be silenced? Or will he find a way to save his patients and others from needless torture? Jim Bailey pulls back the exam room curtain to reveal a giant healthcare industry spiraling out of control. This literary tour de force resonates with core themes of classical literature, medical history, and science. "The End of Healing" brings Dante's "Inferno" to life for a new era and proves hell is alive and well in American healthcare today. This book will change your perspective on the U.S. medical system forever...and give you the insight you need to find real healing in today's world. Jim Bailey is a fellow in the American College of Physicians and professor of medicine and preventive medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, where he directs the Center for Health Systems Improvement, cares for the sick, and teaches doctors in training. His research appears in peer-reviewed medical journals, including "JAMA," "Journal of General Internal Medicine," and "Annals of Internal Medicine." Dr. Bailey has an abiding passion for the classics, medical history, and ethics, and believes that sharing our stories can heal. This is his first novel. To share your story and learn how to take charge of your health, visit EndofHealing.com and TheHealthyCity.org.
Download or read book Lifelines written by Dr. Leana Wen and published by Metropolitan Books. This book was released on 2021-07-27 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From medical expert Leana Wen, MD, Lifelines is an insider's account of public health and its crucial role—from opioid addiction to global pandemic—and an inspiring story of her journey from struggling immigrant to being one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People. “Public health saved your life today—you just don’t know it,” is a phrase that Dr. Leana Wen likes to use. You don’t know it because good public health is invisible. It becomes visible only in its absence, when it is underfunded and ignored, a bitter truth laid bare as never before by the devastation of COVID-19. Leana Wen—emergency physician, former Baltimore health commissioner, CNN medical analyst, and Washington Post contributing columnist—has lived on the front lines of public health, leading the fight against the opioid epidemic, outbreaks of infectious disease, maternal and infant mortality, and COVID-19 disinformation. Here, in gripping detail, Wen lays bare the lifesaving work of public health and its innovative approach to social ills, treating gun violence as a contagious disease, for example, and racism as a threat to health. Wen also tells her own uniquely American story: an immigrant from China, she and her family received food stamps and were at times homeless despite her parents working multiple jobs. That child went on to attend college at thirteen, become a Rhodes scholar, and turn to public health as the way to make a difference in the country that had offered her such possibilities. Ultimately, she insists, it is public health that ensures citizens are not robbed of decades of life, and that where children live does not determine whether they live.
Download or read book Her Own Medicine written by Sayantani DasGupta and published by Turtleback Books. This book was released on 1999 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sayantani DasGupta entered Johns Hopkins School of Medicine with a vision of saving lives. But first she had to save herself--from politics, red tape, and sexism. In this book, she recalls her trials and tribulations, touching on a wide range of topics, including clinical rotations, romance in the hospital, AIDS, mentoring, and media portrayals of medical professionals.
Download or read book Becoming a Doctor written by Melvin Konner and published by Penguin Mass Market. This book was released on 1988 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At age 33, Melvin Konner entered medical school. This is an account of his third year when students first apply the results of their endless book-learning and test-taking.
Download or read book What Patients Taught Me written by Audrey Young and published by Sasquatch Books. This book was released on 2009-09-29 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A young doctor writes frankly of her medical training in small rural communities around the world, reflecting on the important lessons she learned along the way Do sleek high-tech hospitals teach more about medicine and less about humanity? Do doctors ever lose their tolerance for suffering? With sensitive observation and graceful prose, this stunning book explores some of these difficult and deeply personal questions, revealing the highs and lows of being a physician in training. Author Audrey Young was just 23-years-old when she took care of her first dying patient. In What Patients Taught Me, she writes of this life-altering experience and of the other struggles she faced in her journey to become a good doctor—from exhausting 36-hour shifts to a perilous rescue mission in an Eskimo village. As she travels to small rural communities throughout the world, she attends to terminal illness, AIDS, tuberculosis, and premature birth, coming face-to-face with mortality and the medical, personal, and socioeconomic dilemmas of her patients.
Download or read book The High Calling written by Alessio C. Salsano and published by . This book was released on 2011-11-29 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the day of his birth his grandfather was certain that Alessio Salsano would become a doctor. To become a physician was to reach the pinnacle of success, to achieve the ultimate goal. As soon as his tiny hands could hold on to things his father made sure he held books on science and medicine. Now, Dr. Salsano takes you on a journey through the life of a physician. Telling of his Italian heritage and upbringing as a child, he shares the details of establishing medicine as his career goal and his early search for life's meaning as he learned to embrace evangelical Christianity. This book chronicles medical school, falling in love, and the welding together of faith and science. It tells how Dr. Salsano came to reside in Virginia Beach where he started a private practice, and describes a personal revival of faith and how it impacted his practice of medicine. Revealing some of the most fascinating and trying times he has experienced in medicine, Dr. Salsano speaks to the medical student seeking this spiritually taxing career. Encouraging the reader with inspiring stories, he shows how combining science and faith in the everyday practice of medicine may be risky, but it is necessary to becoming a great doctor. It's a story of sacrifice, lawsuits, and testing of morals and ethics. Learn how one doctor nearly lost all confidence in his ability to help people, but fought the urge to flee, and stayed to fight. With God's help, he chose The High Calling.
Download or read book The Vaccine written by Joe Miller and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2022-02-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winners of the Paul Ehrlich Prize The dramatic story of the married scientists who founded BioNTech and developed the first vaccine against COVID-19. Nobody thought it was possible. In mid-January 2020, Ugur Sahin told Özlem Türeci, his wife and decades-long research partner, that a vaccine against what would soon be known as COVID-19 could be developed and safely injected into the arms of millions before the end of the year. His confidence was built upon almost thirty years of research. While working to revolutionize the way that cancerous tumors are treated, the couple had explored a volatile and overlooked molecule called messenger RNA; they believed it could be harnessed to redirect the immune system's forces against any number of diseases. As the founders of BioNTech, they faced widespread skepticism from the scientific community at first; but by the time Sars-Cov-2 was discovered in Wuhan, China, BioNTech was prepared to deploy cutting edge technology and create the world’s first clinically approved inoculation for the coronavirus. The Vaccine draws back the curtain on one of the most important medical breakthroughs of our age; it will reveal how Doctors Sahin and Türeci were able to develop twenty vaccine candidates within weeks, convince Big Pharma to support their ambitious project, navigate political interference from the Trump administration and the European Union, and provide more than three billion doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to countries around the world in record time. Written by Joe Miller—the Financial Times’ Frankfurt correspondent who covered BioNTech’s COVID-19 project in real time—with contributions from Sahin and Türeci, as well as interviews with more than sixty scientists, politicians, public health officials, and BioNTech staff, the book covers key events throughout the extraordinary year, as well as exploring the scientific, economic, and personal background of each medical innovation. Crafted to be both completely accessible to the average reader and filled with details that will fascinate seasoned microbiologists, The Vaccine explains the science behind the breakthrough, at a time when public confidence in vaccine safety and efficacy is crucial to bringing an end to this pandemic.
Download or read book Adventures in Human Being written by Gavin Francis and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2015-04-30 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sunday Times bestseller We have a lifetime's association with our bodies, but for many of us they remain uncharted territory. In Adventures in Human Being, Gavin Francis leads the reader on a journey through health and illness, offering insights on everything from the ribbed surface of the brain to the secret workings of the heart and the womb; from the pulse of life at the wrist to the unique engineering of the foot. Drawing on his own experiences as a doctor and GP, he blends first-hand case studies with reflections on the way the body has been imagined and portrayed over the millennia. If the body is a foreign country, then to practise medicine is to explore new territory: Francis leads the reader on an adventure through what it means to be human. Both a user's guide to the body and a celebration of its elegance, this book will transform the way you think about being alive, whether in sickness or in health. Published in association with the Wellcome Collection. WELLCOME COLLECTION Wellcome Collection is a free museum and library that aims to challenge how we think and feel about health. Inspired by the medical objects and curiosities collected by Henry Wellcome, it connects science, medicine, life and art. Wellcome Collection exhibitions, events and books explore a diverse range of subjects, including consciousness, forensic medicine, emotions, sexology, identity and death. Wellcome Collection is part of Wellcome, a global charitable foundation that exists to improve health for everyone by helping great ideas to thrive, funding over 14,000 researchers and projects in more than 70 countries. wellcomecollection.org
Download or read book Cure written by Jo Marchant and published by Text Publishing. This book was released on 2016-01-27 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rigorous, sceptical, deeply reported look at the new science behind the mind's extraordinary ability to heal the body. Have you ever felt a surge of adrenaline after narrowly avoiding an accident? Salivated at the sight (or thought) of a sour lemon? Felt turned on just from hearing your partner's voice? If so, then you've experienced how dramatically the workings of your mind can affect your body. Yet while we accept that stress or anxiety can damage our health, the idea of 'healing thoughts' was long ago hijacked by New Age gurus and spiritual healers. Recently, however, serious scientists from a range of fields have been uncovering evidence that our thoughts, emotions, and beliefs can ease pain, heal wounds, fend off infection and heart disease, even slow the progression of AIDS and some cancers. In Cure, award-winning science writer Jo Marchant travels the world to meet the physicians, patients and researchers on the cutting edge of this new world of medicine. We learn how meditation protects against depression and dementia, how social connections increase life expectancy, and how patients who feel cared for recover from surgery faster. We meet Iraq war veterans who are using a virtual arctic world to treat their burns and children whose ADHD is kept under control with half the normal dose of medication. We watch as a transplant patient uses the smell of lavender to calm his hostile immune system and an Olympic runner shaves vital seconds off his time through mind-power alone. Drawing on the very latest research, Marchant explores the vast potential of the mind's ability to heal, acknowledges its limitations, and explains how we can make use of the findings in our own lives. ‘A thought-provoking exploration of how the mind affects the body and can be harnessed to help treat physical illness, by an award-winning science journalist.’ Best Books of 2016, Australian Financial Review ‘A thought-provoking exploration.’ Best Books of 2016, Economist
Download or read book The Doctors Blackwell How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women and Women to Medicine written by Janice P. Nimura and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2021-01-19 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller Finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Biography "Janice P. Nimura has resurrected Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell in all their feisty, thrilling, trailblazing splendor." —Stacy Schiff Elizabeth Blackwell believed from an early age that she was destined for a mission beyond the scope of "ordinary" womanhood. Though the world at first recoiled at the notion of a woman studying medicine, her intelligence and intensity ultimately won her the acceptance of the male medical establishment. In 1849, she became the first woman in America to receive an M.D. She was soon joined in her iconic achievement by her younger sister, Emily, who was actually the more brilliant physician. Exploring the sisters’ allies, enemies, and enduring partnership, Janice P. Nimura presents a story of trial and triumph. Together, the Blackwells founded the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children, the first hospital staffed entirely by women. Both sisters were tenacious and visionary, but their convictions did not always align with the emergence of women’s rights—or with each other. From Bristol, Paris, and Edinburgh to the rising cities of antebellum America, this richly researched new biography celebrates two complicated pioneers who exploded the limits of possibility for women in medicine. As Elizabeth herself predicted, "a hundred years hence, women will not be what they are now."
