Award-winning physician Philip C. Hébert creates a brave and intimate portrait of the complex ethical imperatives at the heart of good medicine: doctors do not have all the answers; patients must be heard; and their needs, desires, fears, and experiences must be reflected in how practitioners look after them.Medical science continues to advance to previously unimagined heights in its diagnostic and treatment capabilities. With these advances, however, come unexpect...

**A riveting first-hand account of a physician who's suddenly a dying patient, In Shock "searches for a glimmer of hope in life’s darkest moments, and finds it.” —The Washington PostDr. Rana Awdish never imagined that an emergency trip to the hospital would result in hemorrhaging nearly all of her blood volume and losing her unborn first child. But after her first visit, Dr. Awdish spent months fighting for her life, enduring consecutive major surgeries a...

In 1991, the Institute of Medicine released a landmark report, which revealed that as many as 98,000 patients were dying every year owing to avoidable medical error. More recent research indicates that estimate was, if anything, a drastic understatement of the patient-safety epidemic in the US health care system.In Malpractice, neurosurgeon and attorney Dr. Larry Schlachter makes a case that most patients enter the system without any idea of the risks they face, due to a m...

The story of two doctors, a father and son, who practiced in very different times and the evolution of the ethics that profoundly influence health careAs a practicing physician and longtime member of his hospital’s ethics committee, Dr. Barron Lerner thought he had heard it all. But in the mid-1990s, his father, an infectious diseases physician, told him a stunning story: he had physically placed his body over an end-stage patient who had stopped breathing, prevent...

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. ...

Contrary to popular belief, most children who suffer from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) do not outgrow the disorders; they become adults who suffer from ADHD. Written by an acknowledged expert in the adult phase of ADHD, this guide will fill the void of available medical information with the latest clinical guidelines and recommended pharmacotherapies for the treatment of the ever-growing population of adult men and women who suffer from the anxiety and restlessness relat...

Drawing upon real accounts of negligence, incompetence, and distrust, this book seeks to identify the key competencies of a good doctor, the ways in which medical care fails, and the roadblocks to ensuring that every licensed doctor is capable. Arguing that it is possible to improve patient care—by lifting the veils of secrecy and better informing patients, by establishing more effective ways of checking doctors' competence, and by ensuring that medical watchdogs protect the public—this di...

Progress in genetic and reproductive technology now offers us the possibility of choosing what kinds of children we do and don't have. Should we welcome this power, or should we fear its implications? There is no ethical question more urgent than this: we may be at a turning-point in the history of humanity. The renowned moral philosopher and best-selling author Jonathan Glover shows us how we might try to answer this question, and other provoking and disturbing questions to which it leads...

For more than a century, the American medical profession insisted that doctors be rigorously trained in medical science and dedicated to professional ethics. Patients revered their doctors as representatives of a sacred vocation. Do we still trust doctors with the same conviction? In Trusting Doctors, Jonathan Imber attributes the development of patients' faith in doctors to the inspiration and influence of Protestant and Catholic clergymen during the nineteenth and early twentiet...

There is an excellent chance this book will save your life. You will see doctors, the practice of medicine, and community hospitals as you have never seen them before. You will learn about things you never could have believed existed before. For what is written in this book has never been told before in its entirety, anywhere and by anyone.Doctors with respectable credentials and good reputations are harming, maiming, and yes, murdering their patients. They are doing it with the su...

In mental health, as in other medical disciplines, the role of the professional is changing. The availability of information, enhanced roles of other healthcare professionals and changes in training have altered the doctor-patient relationship and left professionals accountable to the needs of clients, politicians, policy makers and funding agencies. This book seeks to redefine the professional role of the specialist mental health worker by bringing perspectives from leading experts from b...

Without any warning, in September 1999, David Newman was told he had a rare and life-threatening tumor in the base of his skull. In the compressed space of five weeks, he consulted with leading physicians and surgeons at four major medical centers. The doctors offered drastically differing opinions; several pronounced the tumor inoperable and voiced skepticism about the effectiveness of any nonsurgical treatment.Talking with Doctors is the story of Newman's efforts, at a t...