The inspiring story of how a leading innovator in patient safety found a simple way to save countless lives.First, do no harm-doctors, nurses and clinicians swear by this code of conduct. Yet in hospitals and doctors' offices across the country, errors are made every single day - avoidable, simple mistakes that often cost lives. Inspired by two medical mistakes that not only ended in unnecessary deaths but hit close to home, Dr. Peter Pronovost made it his personal...

First, do no harm-doctors, nurses and clinicians swear by this code of conduct. Yet in hospitals and doctors' offices across the country, errors are made every single day—avoidable, simple mistakes that often cost lives. Inspired by two medical mistakes that not only ended in unnecessary deaths but hit close to home, Dr. Peter Pronovost made it his personal mission to improve patient safety and make preventable deaths a thing of the past, one hospital at a time.Dr. Pronovost began ...

Benjamin Daniels is angry. He is frustrated, confused, baffled and, quite frequently, very funny. He is also a GP. These are his confessions.A woman troubled by pornographic dreams about Tom Jones. An 80-year-old man who can't remember why he's come to see the doctor. A woman with a common cold demanding (but not receiving) antibiotics. A man with a sore knee. A young woman who has been trying to conceive for a while but now finds herself pregnant and isn't sure she wants to go thr...

WHEN THIS DOCTOR TALKS, YOU SHOULD LISTEN.Thousands of people make an early exit each year and arrive on medical examiner Jan Garavaglia’s table. What is particularly sad about this is that many of these deaths could easily have been prevented. Although Dr. Garavaglia, or Dr. G, as she’s known to many, could not tell these individuals how to avoid their fates, we can benefit from her experience and profound insight into the choices we make each day.In How Not to Die

**Victoria Sweet's new book, SLOW MEDICINE, is on sale now!For readers of Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air, a medical “page-turner” that traces one doctor’s “remarkable journey to the essence of medicine” (The San Francisco Chronicle).**San Francisco’s Laguna Honda Hospital is the last almshouse in the country, a descendant of the Hôtel-Dieu (God’s hotel) that cared for the sick in the Middle Ages. Ballet dancers and rock musicians, professors and ...

Her weakest moment spawned a crusade for change. Julie Devaney takes us on a journey through the health care system as she is diagnosed and treated for ulcerative colitis. In and out of emergency rooms in Vancouver and Toronto, she’s poked, prodded, and abandoned to a closet at one point, bearing the helplessness and indignities of a system that seems hell-bent on victimizing the sick. Raw, harrowing, and darkly funny, Julie Devaney argues convincingly for fixes to the system and better tr...

In The Surprising Lives of Small-Town Doctors, physicians put down their stethoscopes and pick up their pens to share some of the most frightening and pivotal moments of their careers. From making igloo house calls to bandaging animal bites to performing surgeries they may have only read about in textbooks, these young doctors speak of the many rewards of practising medicine in small communities. They also detail the fears, failures, and challenges of providing health care in the ...

With his “deeply informed and compassionate book…Dr. Epstein tells us that it is a ‘moral imperative’ [for doctors] to do right by their patients” (New York Journal of Books).The first book for the general public about the importance of mindfulness in medical practice, Attending is a groundbreaking, intimate exploration of how doctors approach their work with patients. From his early days as a Harvard Medical School student, Epstein saw what made ...

You Don't Look Sick chronicles one personís true-life story of illness and her physicians compassionate commentary as they journey through the four stages of chronic illness: Getting Sick, Being Sick, Grief and Acceptance and Living Well. The authors address such practical aspects as hiring a doctor, managing chronic pain, coping with grief and loss of function, winning battles with health and disability insurers, countering the social bias against the chronically ill, and recogni...

"Insightful and filled with verve...electrifying."—Wall Street JournalHailed as "an astute book of enormous importance" (Sherwin Nuland), The Surgeons follows the team at one of the world's premier cardiac surgery and transplant centers. Given unprecedented access, Charles R. Morris recounts in thrilling detail a late-night against-the-clock "harvest run" to secure a precious transplantable organ, the heartbreaking story of a child's failed transplant, and more. A...

3,000 Pulses Later: A Memoir of Surviving Depression Without Medication describes how, as a successful advertising executive, wife, and mother with a seemingly ideal life, Martha Rhodes succumbed to depression and overdosed on Xanax and alcohol in an unsuccessful suicide attempt. The memoir describes her challenges with untreated, drug-resistant depression and her struggle to find an alternative to the drugs that failed to relieve her symptoms. After a grueling stay in a psychiatric ward a...

Despite battling depression in his mid-teens, Rohit Kumar fulfilled his beloved parents’ dream of becoming a doctor in 1990. He was one of Canada’s first hospitalists before setting up a highly successful private practice, and acquired specialized expertise in treating patients with chronic pain and those needing palliative care. Dr. Kumar’s star began rising in both Canada and the United States. But, his increasingly erratic behaviour and mood swings began alienating his colleagues, wives an...