Author: Susan B. Rubin Publisher: Indiana University Press ISBN: 9780253112965 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 214
Book Description
"The book is a fine addition to the world of academic medical ethics... Readers... will come away with some of the tools for further debate." -- Publishers Weekly "Susan B. Rubin's splendid new book... offers positive, humane solutions to the frustrations that have given rise to the futility debate." -- Carl Elliott, Medical Humanities Review "Rubin offers a thorough and thought-provoking exploration of the concept of futility as a basis for medical decisions." -- Choice "... [the] brilliant analysis found in Rubin's [book] couldn't be more timely.... When Doctors Say No is the most thorough philosophical rebuttal to be found in the literature of medical futility as the basis for unilateral decisionmaking by physicians." -- Charles Weijer, Canadian Medical Association Journal Should physicians be permitted to unilaterally refuse to provide treatment that they deem futile? Even if the patient, or the patient's family, insists that everything possible must be done? In this book, philosopher and bioethicist Rubin examines this controversial issue. She offers a critique of the concept of medical futility and the debate surrounding it, and she calls for more public debate about the underlying issues at stake for all of us -- patients, families, health care providers, insurers, and society at large.
Author: Dr. Leana Wen Publisher: Macmillan ISBN: 0312594917 Category : Health & Fitness Languages : en Pages : 350
Book Description
Discusses how to avoid harmful medical mistakes, offering advice on such topics as working with a busy doctor, communicating the full story of an illness, evaluating test risks, and obtaining a working diagnosis.
Author: Jerome Groopman Publisher: HarperCollins ISBN: 0547348630 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 325
Book Description
On average, a physician will interrupt a patient describing her symptoms within eighteen seconds. 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.
Author: Steven Hatch Publisher: Basic Books ISBN: 0465098576 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 313
Book Description
There's a running joke among radiologists: finding a tumor in a mammogram is akin to finding a snowball in a blizzard. A bit of medical gallows humor, this simile illustrates the difficulties of finding signals (the snowball) against a background of noise (the blizzard). Doctors are faced with similar difficulties every day when sifting through piles of data from blood tests to X-rays to endless lists of patient symptoms. Diagnoses are often just educated guesses, and prognoses less certain still. There is a significant amount of uncertainty in the daily practice of medicine, resulting in confusion and potentially deadly complications. Dr. Steven Hatch argues that instead of ignoring this uncertainty, we should embrace it. By digging deeply into a number of rancorous controversies, from breast cancer screening to blood pressure management, Hatch shows us how medicine can fail-sometimes spectacularly-when patients and doctors alike place too much faith in modern medical technology. The key to good health might lie in the ability to recognize the hype created by so many medical reports, sense when to push a physician for more testing, or resist a physician's enthusiasm when unnecessary tests or treatments are being offered. Both humbling and empowering, Snowball in a Blizzard lays bare the inescapable murkiness that permeates the theory and practice of modern medicine. Essential reading for physicians and patients alike, this book shows how, by recognizing rather than denying that uncertainty, we can all make better health decisions.
Author: Rachel Pearson Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company ISBN: 0393249255 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 213
Book Description
A brutally frank memoir about doctors and patients in a health care system that puts the poor at risk. No Apparent Distress begins with a mistake made by a white medical student that may have hastened the death of a working-class black man who sought care in a student-run clinic. Haunted by this error, the author—herself from a working-class background—delves into the stories and politics of a medical training system in which students learn on the bodies of the poor. Part confession, part family history, No Apparent Distress is at once an indictment of American health care and a deeply moving tale of one doctor’s coming-of-age.
Author: Les Irwig Publisher: Judy Irwig ISBN: 1905140177 Category : Health & Fitness Languages : en Pages : 255
Book Description
Every day we make decisions about our health - some big and some small. What we eat, how we live and even where we live can affect our health. But how can we be sure that the advice we are given about these important matters is right for us? This book will provide you with the right tools for assessing health advice.
Author: Vinayak K. Prasad Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press ISBN: 1421429047 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 276
Book Description
Why medicine adopts ineffective or harmful medical practices only to abandon them—sometimes too late. Medications such as Vioxx and procedures such as vertebroplasty for back pain are among the medical "advances" that turned out to be dangerous or useless. What Dr. Vinayak K. Prasad and Dr. Adam S. Cifu call medical reversal happens when doctors start using a medication, procedure, or diagnostic tool without a robust evidence base—and then stop using it when it is found not to help, or even to harm, patients. In Ending Medical Reversal, Drs. Prasad and Cifu narrate fascinating stories from every corner of medicine to explore why medical reversals occur, how they are harmful, and what can be done to avoid them. They explore the difference between medical innovations that improve care and those that only appear to be promising. They also outline a comprehensive plan to reform medical education, research funding and protocols, and the process for approving new drugs that will ensure that more of what gets done in doctors' offices and hospitals is truly effective.
Author: Danielle Ofri, MD Publisher: Beacon Press ISBN: 0807037885 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 274
Book Description
Medical mistakes are more pervasive than we think. How can we improve outcomes? An acclaimed MD’s rich stories and research explore patient safety. Patients enter the medical system with faith that they will receive the best care possible, so when things go wrong, it’s a profound and painful breach. Medical science has made enormous strides in decreasing mortality and suffering, but there’s no doubt that treatment can also cause harm, a significant portion of which is preventable. In When We Do Harm, practicing physician and acclaimed author Danielle Ofri places the issues of medical error and patient safety front and center in our national healthcare conversation. Drawing on current research, professional experience, and extensive interviews with nurses, physicians, administrators, researchers, patients, and families, Dr. Ofri explores the diagnostic, systemic, and cognitive causes of medical error. She advocates for strategic use of concrete safety interventions such as checklists and improvements to the electronic medical record, but focuses on the full-scale cultural and cognitive shifts required to make a meaningful dent in medical error. Woven throughout the book are the powerfully human stories that Dr. Ofri is renowned for. The errors she dissects range from the hardly noticeable missteps to the harrowing medical cataclysms. While our healthcare system is—and always will be—imperfect, Dr. Ofri argues that it is possible to minimize preventable harms, and that this should be the galvanizing issue of current medical discourse.
Author: Institute of Medicine Publisher: National Academies Press ISBN: 030908265X Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 781
Book Description
Racial and ethnic disparities in health care are known to reflect access to care and other issues that arise from differing socioeconomic conditions. There is, however, increasing evidence that even after such differences are accounted for, race and ethnicity remain significant predictors of the quality of health care received. In Unequal Treatment, a panel of experts documents this evidence and explores how persons of color experience the health care environment. The book examines how disparities in treatment may arise in health care systems and looks at aspects of the clinical encounter that may contribute to such disparities. Patients' and providers' attitudes, expectations, and behavior are analyzed. How to intervene? Unequal Treatment offers recommendations for improvements in medical care financing, allocation of care, availability of language translation, community-based care, and other arenas. The committee highlights the potential of cross-cultural education to improve provider-patient communication and offers a detailed look at how to integrate cross-cultural learning within the health professions. The book concludes with recommendations for data collection and research initiatives. Unequal Treatment will be vitally important to health care policymakers, administrators, providers, educators, and students as well as advocates for people of color.
Author: Danielle Ofri, MD Publisher: Beacon Press ISBN: 0807062642 Category : Medical Languages : en Pages : 250
Book Description
Can refocusing conversations between doctors and their patients lead to better health? Despite modern medicine’s infatuation with high-tech gadgetry, the single most powerful diagnostic tool is the doctor-patient conversation, which can uncover the lion’s share of illnesses. However, what patients say and what doctors hear are often two vastly different things. Patients, anxious to convey their symptoms, feel an urgency to “make their case” to their doctors. Doctors, under pressure to be efficient, multitask while patients speak and often miss the key elements. Add in stereotypes, unconscious bias, conflicting agendas, and fear of lawsuits and the risk of misdiagnosis and medical errors multiplies dangerously. Though the gulf between what patients say and what doctors hear is often wide, Dr. Danielle Ofri proves that it doesn’t have to be. Through the powerfully resonant human stories that Dr. Ofri’s writing is renowned for, she explores the high-stakes world of doctor-patient communication that we all must navigate. Reporting on the latest research studies and interviewing scholars, doctors, and patients, Dr. Ofri reveals how better communication can lead to better health for all of us.
Author: Susan B. Rubin
Author: Dr. Leana Wen
Author: Jerome Groopman
Author: Steven Hatch
Author: Rachel Pearson
Author: Les Irwig
Author: Vinayak K. Prasad
Author: Danielle Ofri, MD
Author: Institute of Medicine
Author: Danielle Ofri, MD