What Matters in Medicine

What Matters in Medicine PDF Author: David Loxterkamp
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 047211865X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
An honest and insightful reflection on lessons learned about primary care from a life as a small town doctor

Being Mortal

Being Mortal PDF Author: Atul Gawande
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
ISBN: 1627790551
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
#1 New York Times Bestseller In Being Mortal, bestselling author Atul Gawande tackles the hardest challenge of his profession: how medicine can not only improve life but also the process of its ending Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming birth, injury, and infectious disease from harrowing to manageable. But in the inevitable condition of aging and death, the goals of medicine seem too frequently to run counter to the interest of the human spirit. Nursing homes, preoccupied with safety, pin patients into railed beds and wheelchairs. Hospitals isolate the dying, checking for vital signs long after the goals of cure have become moot. Doctors, committed to extending life, continue to carry out devastating procedures that in the end extend suffering. Gawande, a practicing surgeon, addresses his profession's ultimate limitation, arguing that quality of life is the desired goal for patients and families. Gawande offers examples of freer, more socially fulfilling models for assisting the infirm and dependent elderly, and he explores the varieties of hospice care to demonstrate that a person's last weeks or months may be rich and dignified. Full of eye-opening research and riveting storytelling, Being Mortal asserts that medicine can comfort and enhance our experience even to the end, providing not only a good life but also a good end.

Listening for What Matters

Listening for What Matters PDF Author: Saul J. Weiner
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197588107
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
"Our fascination with the topic of contextualizing care began about twenty years ago when the evidence-based medicine movement had taken hold. We noticed that although medical residents were skilled at identifying the latest studies and guidelines, their care plans often didn't seem appropriate once one considered the life challenges some of their patients were facing. We'd see, for instance, a patient with poorly controlled asthma put on a higher dose of a medication they weren't taking, rather than a cheaper generic, when the context was that they couldn't afford it. We coined the terms "contextual error" to describe these kinds of mistakes and "contextualized care" when patients' care plans are adapted to their life circumstances"--

Essential Evidence

Essential Evidence PDF Author: David Slawson
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 9780470484814
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 544

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Book Description
This manual helps clinicians easily to find the best available evidence to facilitate sound medical decisions. It is the first published compilation of highly relevant InfoPOEMs that the editors believe has the potential to change a clinician's practice. The editors have selected over 300 of the most influential, compelling POEMs, and organized them by topic for easy reference. Each POEM contains: Clinical Question: Poses a question that the study seeks to answer. Bottom line: Summarizes the findings of the research and places these findings into the context with the known information on the topic. The bottom line also is designed to help readers understand how to apply the results. LOE: Each review is given a Level of Evidence indicator. This allows the reader to discern an overall sense of how well the new information is supported. Reference: Displays the citation of the article being reviewed. Study Design: Identifies the procedures of the study (i.e., Meta-Analysis, randomized controlled trial). Setting: Identifies the environment in which the study took place (i.e., outpatient, inpatient). Synopsis: Provides a brief overview of the study design and results, but is not an abstract. The editors have pulled out only the most important information – the materials that readers need to judge the validity of the research and to understand the results. The manual opens with two complementary, original chapters: 1) Introduction to Information Mastery which covers the skills physicians need to practice the best medicine. 2) An Introduction to Evidence Based Medicine that reviews the key concepts and principles behind this practice model.

The Good Doctor

The Good Doctor PDF Author: Kenneth Brigham
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
ISBN: 1609809971
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
What makes a good doctor? It's not what you think. A doctor willing to face their own uncertainty in the face of illness and treatment might just be the best medicine. Too often we choose the wrong doctor for the wrong reasons. It doesn't have to be that way. In The Good Doctor, Ken Brigham, MD, and Michael M.E. Johns, MD, argue that we need to change the way we think about health care if we want to be the healthiest we can be. Counterintuitive as it may seem, uncertainty is integral to medicine, and you want a doctor who knows that: someone who sees you as the unique case you are, someone who knows that data isn't everything, someone who is able to change her mind as the information changes. For too long we've clung to the myth of the infallible doctor--one who assuredly tells us this is what's wrong and here is how I will cure you--and our health has suffered for it. Brigham and Johns propose a new model of medicine, one that is comfortable with ambiguity and that centers on an equal partnership between patient and doctor. Uncertainty, properly embraced, opens a new universe of possibilities.

Healthcare and Human Dignity

Healthcare and Human Dignity PDF Author: Frank M. McClellan
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 1978802978
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 203

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Book Description
The individual and structural biases that affect the American healthcare system have serious emotional and physical consequences that all too often go unseen. These biases are often rooted in power, class, racial, gender or sexual orientation prejudices, and as a result, the injured parties usually lack the resources needed to protect themselves. In Healthcare and Human Dignity, individual worth, equality, and autonomy emerge as the dominant values at stake in encounters with doctors, nurses, hospitals, and drug companies. Although the public is aware of legal battles over autonomy and dignity in the context of death, the everyday patient’s need for dignity has received scant attention. Thus, in Healthcare, law professor Frank McClellan’s collection of cases and individual experiences bring these stories to life and establish beyond doubt that human dignity is of utmost priority in the everyday process of healthcare decision making.

Why Our Health Matters

Why Our Health Matters PDF Author: Andrew Weil
Publisher: Hudson st Press
ISBN: 9781594630668
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Discusses what has gone wrong with the American way of health to create the crisis in which the author feels the U.S. is embroiled, and offers a solution that calls for a completely new culture of health and medicine.

The Checklist Manifesto

The Checklist Manifesto PDF Author: Atul Gawande
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
ISBN: 1429953381
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
The New York Times bestselling author of Being Mortal and Complications reveals the surprising power of the ordinary checklist We live in a world of great and increasing complexity, where even the most expert professionals struggle to master the tasks they face. Longer training, ever more advanced technologies—neither seems to prevent grievous errors. But in a hopeful turn, acclaimed surgeon and writer Atul Gawande finds a remedy in the humblest and simplest of techniques: the checklist. First introduced decades ago by the U.S. Air Force, checklists have enabled pilots to fly aircraft of mind-boggling sophistication. Now innovative checklists are being adopted in hospitals around the world, helping doctors and nurses respond to everything from flu epidemics to avalanches. Even in the immensely complex world of surgery, a simple ninety-second variant has cut the rate of fatalities by more than a third. In riveting stories, Gawande takes us from Austria, where an emergency checklist saved a drowning victim who had spent half an hour underwater, to Michigan, where a cleanliness checklist in intensive care units virtually eliminated a type of deadly hospital infection. He explains how checklists actually work to prompt striking and immediate improvements. And he follows the checklist revolution into fields well beyond medicine, from disaster response to investment banking, skyscraper construction, and businesses of all kinds. An intellectual adventure in which lives are lost and saved and one simple idea makes a tremendous difference, The Checklist Manifesto is essential reading for anyone working to get things right.

Sex Matters

Sex Matters PDF Author: Alyson J. McGregor
Publisher: Hachette Go
ISBN: 0738246751
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Get the right care for your body -- and avoid treatments that can endanger women -- with this important manual from a physician who is a leading expert on sex and gender medicine. Sex Matters tackles one of the most urgent, yet unspoken issues facing women's health care today: all models of medical research and practice are based on male-centric models that ignore the unique biological and emotional differences between men and women -- an omission that can endanger women's lives. The facts surrounding how male-centric medicine impacts women's health every day are chilling: in the ER, women are more likely to receive a psychiatric diagnosis with regard to opioid use, while men are more likely to be referred for detoxification; the more vocal women become about their pain, the more likely their providers are to prescribe either inadequate or inappropriate pain relief medication; women often present with nontraditional symptoms of stroke, which causes delays in recognition by both them and their health professionals; and a government accountability study found that 80% of drugs that are withdrawn from the market are due to side effects that happen to women (a result of testing drugs mostly on men). Leading expert on sex and gender medicine Dr. Alyson McGregor focuses on the key areas where these differences are most potentially harmful, addressing: Cardiac and stroke diagnosis and treatment in women Prescription and dosing of pharmaceuticals; Subjective evaluation of women's symptoms; Pain and pain management; Hormones and female biochemistry (including prescribed hormones); How economic status, race, and gender identity are additional critical factors. Not only does Dr. McGregor explore these disparities in depth, she shares clear, practical suggestions for what women can do to protect themselves. A work of riveting exposé with revelatory insights and actionable guidance for navigating the medical establishment, Sex Matters is an empowering roadmap for reinventing modern medicine -- and for self-care.

Matters of the Heart

Matters of the Heart PDF Author: Fay Bound Alberti
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199540977
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
The heart is the most symbolic organ of the human body. Across cultures it is seen as the site of emotions, as well as the origin of life. This book traces the ways emotions have been understood between the 17th and 19th centuries as both physical entities and spiritual experiences.