Author: Arthur Bank
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9814425516
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Book Description
This book describes the life and times of a physician-scientist over the last half-century. Part One is about the author''s struggle with colon cancer and the lessons he learnt from the experience; Part Two is about his life growing up, the pretzel bakery, his family, being educated at Bronx Science, Columbia College, Harvard Medical School, and his medical training at the Boston City Hospital and the NIH. Part Three, the major portion of the book, describes the author''s experiences as a practicing physician and hematologist at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center over 40 years. It also presents his views on what it takes to be a good doctor and to practice good medicine. Part Four is about medicine today, the crisis in medical care and in obtaining affordable health insurance in the United States, and potential solutions to these problems. And finally, it also describes the author''s views on how changes in America over the past few decades have transformed our society from that of the meritocracy as known in the early days to that of the present society dominated by financial considerations.
Searching for the Best Medicine
Author: Arthur Bank
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9814425516
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Book Description
This book describes the life and times of a physician-scientist over the last half-century. Part One is about the author''s struggle with colon cancer and the lessons he learnt from the experience; Part Two is about his life growing up, the pretzel bakery, his family, being educated at Bronx Science, Columbia College, Harvard Medical School, and his medical training at the Boston City Hospital and the NIH. Part Three, the major portion of the book, describes the author''s experiences as a practicing physician and hematologist at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center over 40 years. It also presents his views on what it takes to be a good doctor and to practice good medicine. Part Four is about medicine today, the crisis in medical care and in obtaining affordable health insurance in the United States, and potential solutions to these problems. And finally, it also describes the author''s views on how changes in America over the past few decades have transformed our society from that of the meritocracy as known in the early days to that of the present society dominated by financial considerations.
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9814425516
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Book Description
This book describes the life and times of a physician-scientist over the last half-century. Part One is about the author''s struggle with colon cancer and the lessons he learnt from the experience; Part Two is about his life growing up, the pretzel bakery, his family, being educated at Bronx Science, Columbia College, Harvard Medical School, and his medical training at the Boston City Hospital and the NIH. Part Three, the major portion of the book, describes the author''s experiences as a practicing physician and hematologist at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center over 40 years. It also presents his views on what it takes to be a good doctor and to practice good medicine. Part Four is about medicine today, the crisis in medical care and in obtaining affordable health insurance in the United States, and potential solutions to these problems. And finally, it also describes the author''s views on how changes in America over the past few decades have transformed our society from that of the meritocracy as known in the early days to that of the present society dominated by financial considerations.
Medicine Quest
Author: Mark J. Plotkin
Publisher: Penguin Group
ISBN: 9780140262100
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 244
Book Description
In Medicine Quest, Mark Plotkin moves beyond the Amazon rainforests of his classic Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice to describe the ongoing race to find new medicines for intractable diseases such as AIDS,cancer, diabetes, and tuberculosis in far-flung places all over the world. While highlighting the unlikely marriage of natural products, indigenous wisdom, and biotechnology, Plotkin details discoveries that are producing stunning results in the laboratory: painkillers from the skin of rainforest frogs, anticoagulants from leech saliva, and antitumor agents from snake venom. An entertaining and educational weave of medicine, ecology, ethnobotany, history, exploration, and adventure, Medicine Quest will thrill scientists, naturalists, and armchair explorers, and heighten our appreciation for the inexhaustible therapeutic potential of our natural world.
Publisher: Penguin Group
ISBN: 9780140262100
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 244
Book Description
In Medicine Quest, Mark Plotkin moves beyond the Amazon rainforests of his classic Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice to describe the ongoing race to find new medicines for intractable diseases such as AIDS,cancer, diabetes, and tuberculosis in far-flung places all over the world. While highlighting the unlikely marriage of natural products, indigenous wisdom, and biotechnology, Plotkin details discoveries that are producing stunning results in the laboratory: painkillers from the skin of rainforest frogs, anticoagulants from leech saliva, and antitumor agents from snake venom. An entertaining and educational weave of medicine, ecology, ethnobotany, history, exploration, and adventure, Medicine Quest will thrill scientists, naturalists, and armchair explorers, and heighten our appreciation for the inexhaustible therapeutic potential of our natural world.
Seeking the Cure
Author: Ira Rutkow
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439171734
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 370
Book Description
A timely, authoritative, and entertaining history of medicine in America by an eminent physician Despite all that has been written and said about American medicine, narrative accounts of its history are uncommon. Until Ira Rutkow’s Seeking the Cure, there have been no modern works, either for the lay reader or the physician, that convey the extraordinary story of medicine in the United States. Yet for more than three centuries, the flowering of medicine—its triumphal progress from ignorance to science—has proven crucial to Americans’ under-standing of their country and themselves. Seeking the Cure tells the tale of American medicine with a series of little-known anecdotes that bring to life the grand and unceasing struggle by physicians to shed unsound, if venerated, beliefs and practices and adopt new medicines and treatments, often in the face of controversy and scorn. Rutkow expertly weaves the stories of individual doctors—what they believed and how they practiced—with the economic, political, and social issues facing the nation. Among the book’s many historical personages are Cotton Mather, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington (whose timely adoption of a controversial medical practice probably saved the Continental Army), Benjamin Rush, James Garfield (who was killed by his doctors, not by an assassin’s bullet), and Joseph Lister. The book touches such diverse topics as smallpox and the Revolutionary War, the establishment of the first medical schools, medicine during the Civil War, railroad medicine and the beginnings of specialization, the rise of the medical-industrial complex, and the thrilling yet costly advent of modern disease-curing technologies utterly unimaginable a generation ago, such as gene therapies, body scanners, and robotic surgeries. In our time of spirited national debate over the future of American health care amid a seemingly infinite flow of new medical discoveries and pharmaceutical products, Rutkow’s account provides readers with an essential historic, social, and even philosophical context. Working in the grand American literary tradition established by such eminent writer-doctors as Oliver Wendell Holmes, William Carlos Williams, Sherwin Nuland, and Oliver Sacks, he combines the historian’s perspective with the physician’s seasoned expertise. Capacious, learned, and gracefully told, Seeking the Cure will satisfy armchair historians and doctors alike, for, as Rutkow shows, the history of American medicine is a portrait of America itself.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439171734
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 370
Book Description
A timely, authoritative, and entertaining history of medicine in America by an eminent physician Despite all that has been written and said about American medicine, narrative accounts of its history are uncommon. Until Ira Rutkow’s Seeking the Cure, there have been no modern works, either for the lay reader or the physician, that convey the extraordinary story of medicine in the United States. Yet for more than three centuries, the flowering of medicine—its triumphal progress from ignorance to science—has proven crucial to Americans’ under-standing of their country and themselves. Seeking the Cure tells the tale of American medicine with a series of little-known anecdotes that bring to life the grand and unceasing struggle by physicians to shed unsound, if venerated, beliefs and practices and adopt new medicines and treatments, often in the face of controversy and scorn. Rutkow expertly weaves the stories of individual doctors—what they believed and how they practiced—with the economic, political, and social issues facing the nation. Among the book’s many historical personages are Cotton Mather, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington (whose timely adoption of a controversial medical practice probably saved the Continental Army), Benjamin Rush, James Garfield (who was killed by his doctors, not by an assassin’s bullet), and Joseph Lister. The book touches such diverse topics as smallpox and the Revolutionary War, the establishment of the first medical schools, medicine during the Civil War, railroad medicine and the beginnings of specialization, the rise of the medical-industrial complex, and the thrilling yet costly advent of modern disease-curing technologies utterly unimaginable a generation ago, such as gene therapies, body scanners, and robotic surgeries. In our time of spirited national debate over the future of American health care amid a seemingly infinite flow of new medical discoveries and pharmaceutical products, Rutkow’s account provides readers with an essential historic, social, and even philosophical context. Working in the grand American literary tradition established by such eminent writer-doctors as Oliver Wendell Holmes, William Carlos Williams, Sherwin Nuland, and Oliver Sacks, he combines the historian’s perspective with the physician’s seasoned expertise. Capacious, learned, and gracefully told, Seeking the Cure will satisfy armchair historians and doctors alike, for, as Rutkow shows, the history of American medicine is a portrait of America itself.
Finding What Works in Health Care
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309164257
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 267
Book Description
Healthcare decision makers in search of reliable information that compares health interventions increasingly turn to systematic reviews for the best summary of the evidence. Systematic reviews identify, select, assess, and synthesize the findings of similar but separate studies, and can help clarify what is known and not known about the potential benefits and harms of drugs, devices, and other healthcare services. Systematic reviews can be helpful for clinicians who want to integrate research findings into their daily practices, for patients to make well-informed choices about their own care, for professional medical societies and other organizations that develop clinical practice guidelines. Too often systematic reviews are of uncertain or poor quality. There are no universally accepted standards for developing systematic reviews leading to variability in how conflicts of interest and biases are handled, how evidence is appraised, and the overall scientific rigor of the process. In Finding What Works in Health Care the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommends 21 standards for developing high-quality systematic reviews of comparative effectiveness research. The standards address the entire systematic review process from the initial steps of formulating the topic and building the review team to producing a detailed final report that synthesizes what the evidence shows and where knowledge gaps remain. Finding What Works in Health Care also proposes a framework for improving the quality of the science underpinning systematic reviews. This book will serve as a vital resource for both sponsors and producers of systematic reviews of comparative effectiveness research.
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309164257
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 267
Book Description
Healthcare decision makers in search of reliable information that compares health interventions increasingly turn to systematic reviews for the best summary of the evidence. Systematic reviews identify, select, assess, and synthesize the findings of similar but separate studies, and can help clarify what is known and not known about the potential benefits and harms of drugs, devices, and other healthcare services. Systematic reviews can be helpful for clinicians who want to integrate research findings into their daily practices, for patients to make well-informed choices about their own care, for professional medical societies and other organizations that develop clinical practice guidelines. Too often systematic reviews are of uncertain or poor quality. There are no universally accepted standards for developing systematic reviews leading to variability in how conflicts of interest and biases are handled, how evidence is appraised, and the overall scientific rigor of the process. In Finding What Works in Health Care the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommends 21 standards for developing high-quality systematic reviews of comparative effectiveness research. The standards address the entire systematic review process from the initial steps of formulating the topic and building the review team to producing a detailed final report that synthesizes what the evidence shows and where knowledge gaps remain. Finding What Works in Health Care also proposes a framework for improving the quality of the science underpinning systematic reviews. This book will serve as a vital resource for both sponsors and producers of systematic reviews of comparative effectiveness research.
Taking Medicine
Author: Liz Gogerly
Publisher: Crabtree Publishing Company
ISBN: 9780778741145
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 36
Book Description
Provides information about the different types of medicines and how to take them safely.
Publisher: Crabtree Publishing Company
ISBN: 9780778741145
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 36
Book Description
Provides information about the different types of medicines and how to take them safely.
Life Is Your Best Medicine
Author: Tieraona Low Dog, M.D.
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1426209614
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Book Description
"The division between conventional and traditional medicine is as artificial as the division between science and nature. They can be woven together in a fashion that meets our physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. This is the foundation upon which integrative medicine is built." -- Tieraona Low Dog, M.D. In Life Is Your Best Medicine, Dr. Low Dog weaves together the wisdom of traditional medicine and the knowledge of modern-day medicine into an elegant message of health and self-affirmation for women of every age. This is a book that can be read cover to cover but also dipped into for inspiration or insight about a particular physical or mental health issue or remedy. We learn that, despite the widespread availability of pharmaceutical medications, advanced surgical care, and state-of-the-art medical technology, chronic illness now affects more than 50% of the American population. The evidence is overwhelmingly clear that much of the chronic disease we are confronting in the United States has its roots in the way we live our lives. Research shows that if Americans embraced a healthier lifestyle, which includes a balance between rest and exercise; wholesome nutrition; healthy weight; positive social interactions; stress management; not smoking; limited alcohol use; and no or limited exposure to toxic chemicals; then 93% of diabetes, 81% of heart attacks, 50% of strokes, and 36% of all cancers could be prevented! This means that each one of us has the power to shift the odds of being healthy in our favor. And if you do get sick, being fit gives you a much better chance for getting well. Your health has a great deal more to do with your lifestyle and a lot less to do with taking prescription drugs than most people realize. Part I. The Medicine of My Life is a personal and passionate introduction to the book Part II. Honoring the Body includes Food, Supplements, Illness, Wholeness Part III. Awakening the Senses includes Nature, Garden, Music Part IV. Listening to Spirit includes Humor, Relationships, Play, Meditation, Animals Epilogue. Contentment
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1426209614
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Book Description
"The division between conventional and traditional medicine is as artificial as the division between science and nature. They can be woven together in a fashion that meets our physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. This is the foundation upon which integrative medicine is built." -- Tieraona Low Dog, M.D. In Life Is Your Best Medicine, Dr. Low Dog weaves together the wisdom of traditional medicine and the knowledge of modern-day medicine into an elegant message of health and self-affirmation for women of every age. This is a book that can be read cover to cover but also dipped into for inspiration or insight about a particular physical or mental health issue or remedy. We learn that, despite the widespread availability of pharmaceutical medications, advanced surgical care, and state-of-the-art medical technology, chronic illness now affects more than 50% of the American population. The evidence is overwhelmingly clear that much of the chronic disease we are confronting in the United States has its roots in the way we live our lives. Research shows that if Americans embraced a healthier lifestyle, which includes a balance between rest and exercise; wholesome nutrition; healthy weight; positive social interactions; stress management; not smoking; limited alcohol use; and no or limited exposure to toxic chemicals; then 93% of diabetes, 81% of heart attacks, 50% of strokes, and 36% of all cancers could be prevented! This means that each one of us has the power to shift the odds of being healthy in our favor. And if you do get sick, being fit gives you a much better chance for getting well. Your health has a great deal more to do with your lifestyle and a lot less to do with taking prescription drugs than most people realize. Part I. The Medicine of My Life is a personal and passionate introduction to the book Part II. Honoring the Body includes Food, Supplements, Illness, Wholeness Part III. Awakening the Senses includes Nature, Garden, Music Part IV. Listening to Spirit includes Humor, Relationships, Play, Meditation, Animals Epilogue. Contentment
Best Medicine
Author: Christine Hamill
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1925712435
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 151
Book Description
Things aren't going well for Philip Wright. It's not just the detentions or the girl problems that are getting him down. Or the fact that he weighs about the same as a medium-sized dog even though he's practically a teenager. Now his best friend is acting super weird, his mum has stopped laughing at his jokes, and his English teacher thinks Philip is... a poet. When Mum gives him some seriously bad news, Philip looks to his comedy hero, Harry Hill, for an answer. But what if it's impossible to joke his way out of this? The Best Medicine is an unforgettable reminder that laughter is the ultimate remedy.
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 1925712435
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 151
Book Description
Things aren't going well for Philip Wright. It's not just the detentions or the girl problems that are getting him down. Or the fact that he weighs about the same as a medium-sized dog even though he's practically a teenager. Now his best friend is acting super weird, his mum has stopped laughing at his jokes, and his English teacher thinks Philip is... a poet. When Mum gives him some seriously bad news, Philip looks to his comedy hero, Harry Hill, for an answer. But what if it's impossible to joke his way out of this? The Best Medicine is an unforgettable reminder that laughter is the ultimate remedy.
The Best Medicine
Author: Theodore Dalrymple
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 0593318587
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
An inspired anthology about physical and psychological illness, healing, and healers--featuring a brilliant array of classic and contemporary writers, from Anton Chekhov to Lorrie Moore. This unique anthology gathers fictional tales of sickness and of healing, both physical and psychological, from a wide variety of times and perspectives. Some of these writers were themselves physicians, notably Anton Chekhov, Arthur Conan Doyle, Somerset Maugham, William Carlos Williams, and Mikhail Bulgakov. Bulgakov's story, taken from A Country Doctor's Notebook, draws on his early experience as a young doctor in rural Russia a century ago, while Anna Kavan's story, from her collection Asylum Piece, is based on her experience of mental illness. Guy de Maupassant, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene, J. G. Ballard, Robert Heinlein, Alice Munro, and Lorrie Moore are among the other writers of medical adventures that fill these pages. From Chekhov's "A Doctor's Visit" and William Carlos Williams's "The Paid Nurse" to Dorothy Parker's "Lady with a Lamp," O. Henry's "Let Me Feel Your Pulse," and Jhumpa Lahiri's "Interpreter of Maladies," the stories gathered here are peopled by a colorful and varied cast of doctors, nurses, and patients. Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket.
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 0593318587
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Book Description
An inspired anthology about physical and psychological illness, healing, and healers--featuring a brilliant array of classic and contemporary writers, from Anton Chekhov to Lorrie Moore. This unique anthology gathers fictional tales of sickness and of healing, both physical and psychological, from a wide variety of times and perspectives. Some of these writers were themselves physicians, notably Anton Chekhov, Arthur Conan Doyle, Somerset Maugham, William Carlos Williams, and Mikhail Bulgakov. Bulgakov's story, taken from A Country Doctor's Notebook, draws on his early experience as a young doctor in rural Russia a century ago, while Anna Kavan's story, from her collection Asylum Piece, is based on her experience of mental illness. Guy de Maupassant, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, Joseph Conrad, Graham Greene, J. G. Ballard, Robert Heinlein, Alice Munro, and Lorrie Moore are among the other writers of medical adventures that fill these pages. From Chekhov's "A Doctor's Visit" and William Carlos Williams's "The Paid Nurse" to Dorothy Parker's "Lady with a Lamp," O. Henry's "Let Me Feel Your Pulse," and Jhumpa Lahiri's "Interpreter of Maladies," the stories gathered here are peopled by a colorful and varied cast of doctors, nurses, and patients. Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket.
The Patient Will See You Now
Author: Eric Topol
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465094473
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 386
Book Description
The essential guide by one of America's leading doctors to how digital technology enables all of us to take charge of our health A trip to the doctor is almost a guarantee of misery. You'll make an appointment months in advance. You'll probably wait for several hours until you hear "the doctor will see you now"-but only for fifteen minutes! Then you'll wait even longer for lab tests, the results of which you'll likely never see, unless they indicate further (and more invasive) tests, most of which will probably prove unnecessary (much like physicals themselves). And your bill will be astronomical. In The Patient Will See You Now, Eric Topol, one of the nation's top physicians, shows why medicine does not have to be that way. Instead, you could use your smartphone to get rapid test results from one drop of blood, monitor your vital signs both day and night, and use an artificially intelligent algorithm to receive a diagnosis without having to see a doctor, all at a small fraction of the cost imposed by our modern healthcare system. The change is powered by what Topol calls medicine's "Gutenberg moment." Much as the printing press took learning out of the hands of a priestly class, the mobile internet is doing the same for medicine, giving us unprecedented control over our healthcare. With smartphones in hand, we are no longer beholden to an impersonal and paternalistic system in which "doctor knows best." Medicine has been digitized, Topol argues; now it will be democratized. Computers will replace physicians for many diagnostic tasks, citizen science will give rise to citizen medicine, and enormous data sets will give us new means to attack conditions that have long been incurable. Massive, open, online medicine, where diagnostics are done by Facebook-like comparisons of medical profiles, will enable real-time, real-world research on massive populations. There's no doubt the path forward will be complicated: the medical establishment will resist these changes, and digitized medicine inevitably raises serious issues surrounding privacy. Nevertheless, the result-better, cheaper, and more human health care-will be worth it. Provocative and engrossing, The Patient Will See You Now is essential reading for anyone who thinks they deserve better health care. That is, for all of us.
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0465094473
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 386
Book Description
The essential guide by one of America's leading doctors to how digital technology enables all of us to take charge of our health A trip to the doctor is almost a guarantee of misery. You'll make an appointment months in advance. You'll probably wait for several hours until you hear "the doctor will see you now"-but only for fifteen minutes! Then you'll wait even longer for lab tests, the results of which you'll likely never see, unless they indicate further (and more invasive) tests, most of which will probably prove unnecessary (much like physicals themselves). And your bill will be astronomical. In The Patient Will See You Now, Eric Topol, one of the nation's top physicians, shows why medicine does not have to be that way. Instead, you could use your smartphone to get rapid test results from one drop of blood, monitor your vital signs both day and night, and use an artificially intelligent algorithm to receive a diagnosis without having to see a doctor, all at a small fraction of the cost imposed by our modern healthcare system. The change is powered by what Topol calls medicine's "Gutenberg moment." Much as the printing press took learning out of the hands of a priestly class, the mobile internet is doing the same for medicine, giving us unprecedented control over our healthcare. With smartphones in hand, we are no longer beholden to an impersonal and paternalistic system in which "doctor knows best." Medicine has been digitized, Topol argues; now it will be democratized. Computers will replace physicians for many diagnostic tasks, citizen science will give rise to citizen medicine, and enormous data sets will give us new means to attack conditions that have long been incurable. Massive, open, online medicine, where diagnostics are done by Facebook-like comparisons of medical profiles, will enable real-time, real-world research on massive populations. There's no doubt the path forward will be complicated: the medical establishment will resist these changes, and digitized medicine inevitably raises serious issues surrounding privacy. Nevertheless, the result-better, cheaper, and more human health care-will be worth it. Provocative and engrossing, The Patient Will See You Now is essential reading for anyone who thinks they deserve better health care. That is, for all of us.
More than Medicine
Author: Robert M. Kaplan
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674975901
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Book Description
Stanford’s pioneering behavioral scientist draws on a lifetime of research and experience guiding the NIH to make the case that America needs to radically rethink its approach to health care if it wants to stop overspending and overprescribing and improve people’s lives. American science produces the best—and most expensive—medical treatments in the world. Yet U.S. citizens lag behind their global peers in life expectancy and quality of life. Robert Kaplan brings together extensive data to make the case that health care priorities in the United States are sorely misplaced. America’s medical system is invested in attacking disease, but not in addressing the social, behavioral, and environmental problems that engender disease in the first place. Medicine is important, but many Americans act as though it were all important. The United States stakes much of its health funding on the promise of high-tech diagnostics and miracle treatments, while ignoring strong evidence that many of the most significant pathways to health are nonmedical. Americans spend millions on drugs for high cholesterol, which increase life expectancy by only six to eight months on average. But they underfund education, which might extend life expectancy by as much as twelve years. Wars on infectious disease have paid off, but clinical trials for chronic conditions—costing billions—rarely confirm that new treatments extend life. Meanwhile, the National Institutes of Health spends just 3 percent of its budget on research on the social and behavioral determinants of health, even though these factors account for 50 percent of premature deaths. America’s failure to take prevention seriously costs lives. More than Medicine argues that we need a shakeup in how we invest resources, and it offers a bold new vision for longer, healthier living.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674975901
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 241
Book Description
Stanford’s pioneering behavioral scientist draws on a lifetime of research and experience guiding the NIH to make the case that America needs to radically rethink its approach to health care if it wants to stop overspending and overprescribing and improve people’s lives. American science produces the best—and most expensive—medical treatments in the world. Yet U.S. citizens lag behind their global peers in life expectancy and quality of life. Robert Kaplan brings together extensive data to make the case that health care priorities in the United States are sorely misplaced. America’s medical system is invested in attacking disease, but not in addressing the social, behavioral, and environmental problems that engender disease in the first place. Medicine is important, but many Americans act as though it were all important. The United States stakes much of its health funding on the promise of high-tech diagnostics and miracle treatments, while ignoring strong evidence that many of the most significant pathways to health are nonmedical. Americans spend millions on drugs for high cholesterol, which increase life expectancy by only six to eight months on average. But they underfund education, which might extend life expectancy by as much as twelve years. Wars on infectious disease have paid off, but clinical trials for chronic conditions—costing billions—rarely confirm that new treatments extend life. Meanwhile, the National Institutes of Health spends just 3 percent of its budget on research on the social and behavioral determinants of health, even though these factors account for 50 percent of premature deaths. America’s failure to take prevention seriously costs lives. More than Medicine argues that we need a shakeup in how we invest resources, and it offers a bold new vision for longer, healthier living.