Over the past forty years, the health humanities, previously called the medical humanities, has emerged as one of the most exciting fields for interdisciplinary scholarship, advancing humanistic inquiry into bioethics, human rights, health care, and the uses of technology. It has also helped inspire medical practitioners to engage in deeper reflection about the human elements of their practice.In Health Humanities Reader, editors Therese Jones, Delese Wear, and Lester D. F...

The final gripping instalment of the bestselling Four Streets trilogy which began with THE FOUR STREETS and continued in HIDE HER NAME.Christmas morning, 1963. Fifteen-year-old Kitty Doherty gives birth in a cold, unfriendly Irish convent. She knows her beautiful baby boy presents a huge danger to her family's Catholic community back in Liverpool's Four Streets. When her baby is adopted by a wealth...

‘Bad Science’ hilariously exposed the tricks that quacks and journalists use to distort science, becoming a 400,000 copy bestseller. Now Ben Goldacre puts the $600bn global pharmaceutical industry under the microscope. What he reveals is a fascinating, terrifying mess.Doctors and patients need good scientific evidence to make informed decisions. But instead, companies run bad trials on their own drugs, which distort and exaggerate the benefits by design. When these trials produce u...

A New York Times Bestseller, with an updated explanation of the 2010 Health Reform BillBringing to bear his talent for explaining complex issues in a clear, engaging way, New York Times bestselling author T. R. Reid visits industrialized democracies around the world--France, Britain, Germany, Japan, and beyond--to provide a revelatory tour of successful, affordable universal health care systems. Now updated with new statistics and a plain-English ...

Cancer touches more lives than you may think. According to the World Health Organization, one out of three women alive today, and one out of two men, will face a cancer diagnosis in their lifetime.To Ty Bollinger, this isn’t just a statistic. It’s personal. After losing seven members of his family to cancer over the course of a decade, Ty set out on a global quest to learn as much as he possibly could about cancer treatments and the medical industry that surrounds t...

Over the last twenty-five years, medicine and consumerism have been on an unchecked collision course, but, until now, the fallout from their impact has yet to be fully uncovered. A writer for The New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly, Carl Elliott ventures into the uncharted dark side of medicine, shining a light on the series of social and legislative changes that have sacrificed old-style doctoring to the values of consumer capitalism. Along the way, he introduce...

Obesity is the public health crisis of the twenty-first century. Over 150 million Americans are overweight or obese, and across the globe an estimated 1.5 billion are affected. In A Big Fat Crisis, Dr. Deborah A. Cohen has created a major new work that will transform the conversation surrounding the modern weight crisis. Based on her own extensive research, as well as the latest insights from behavioral economics and cognitive science, Cohen reveals what drives the obesity epidemi...

Burdened with perennially rising costs and responsible for providing health insurance to more than one sixth of all Americans, Medicare in its original form is fiscally and demographically unsustainable. In light of dramatic reforms under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), this book provides a comprehensive overview of the current state of Medicare. Eleanor D. Kinney explains how the ACA addresses systemic problems of cost and volume inflation, quality assurance, and fraud. Recognizing the pot...

Susan Sontag once described illness as “the night-side of life.” When we or our loved ones fall ill, our world is thrown into darkness and disarray, our routines are interrupted, our deepest beliefs shaken. The modern regime of hyper-logical biomedicine offers little solace when it comes to the effects of ill health on our inner lives. By exploring the role of desire in illness, Eros and Illness offers an alternative: an unconventional, deeply human exploration of what it means to...

This book analyses the development and use of mathematical models in public health research and policy. By introducing a life cycle metaphor, the author provides a unique perspective on how mathematical modelling techniques have increased our understanding of the governance of infectious risks in society.

This book takes as its point of departure a humble cell lying on the intersection of ideas as diverse and yet interlaced as life, knowledge, commerce, governance, and ethics. It seeks to deepen the understanding of stem cell entities and the concerns, hopes, and aspirations that shape and make them viable therapeutic entities in the context of rapid globalization. Several key intersections between individual, group, and institutional relationships have become central to locating and debati...

With more than 40% of people eventually facing a cancer diagnosis, Conversing with Cancer is a much-needed addition to understanding and improving cancer care through strong communication among providers, patients, and caregivers. Each person whose life is affected by a cancer diagnosis—patient, healthcare provider, caregiver—has information and needs information in order to make the best decisions possible under the circumstances. After studying and writing about the topics of co...