A Beautiful Sickness

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Beauty Sick

Author : Renee Engeln, PhD
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0062469797
Total Pages : 400 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (624 download)

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Book Synopsis Beauty Sick by : Renee Engeln, PhD

Download or read book Beauty Sick written by Renee Engeln, PhD and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-04-18 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[Beauty Sick] will blow the top off the body image movement…provocative and necessary.” — Rebellious Magazine An award-winning psychology professor reveals how the cultural obsession with women's appearance is an epidemic that harms women's ability to get ahead and to live happy, meaningful lives, in this powerful, eye-opening work in the vein of Peggy Orenstein and Sheryl Sandberg. Today’s young women face a bewildering set of contradictions when it comes to beauty. They don’t want to be Barbie dolls but, like generations of women before them, are told they must look like them. They’re angry about the media’s treatment of women but hungrily consume the outlets that belittle them. They mock modern culture’s absurd beauty ideal and make videos exposing Photoshopping tricks, but feel pressured to emulate the same images they criticize by posing with a "skinny arm." They understand that what they see isn’t real but still download apps to airbrush their selfies. Yet these same young women are fierce fighters for the issues they care about. They are ready to fight back against their beauty-sick culture and create a different world for themselves, but they need a way forward. In Beauty Sick, Dr. Renee Engeln, whose TEDx talk on beauty sickness has received more than 250,000 views, reveals the shocking consequences of our obsession with girls’ appearance on their emotional and physical health and their wallets and ambitions, including depression, eating disorders, disruptions in cognitive processing, and lost money and time. Combining scientific studies with the voices of real women of all ages, she makes clear that to truly fulfill their potential, we must break free from cultural forces that feed destructive desires, attitudes, and words—from fat-shaming to denigrating commentary about other women. She provides inspiration and workable solutions to help girls and women overcome negative attitudes and embrace their whole selves, to transform their lives, claim the futures they deserve, and, ultimately, change their world.

Beauty Sick

Author : Renee Engeln, PhD
Publisher : Harper Paperbacks
ISBN 13 : 9780062469786
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (697 download)

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Book Synopsis Beauty Sick by : Renee Engeln, PhD

Download or read book Beauty Sick written by Renee Engeln, PhD and published by Harper Paperbacks. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An award-winning Northwestern University psychology professor reveals how the cultural obsession with women's appearance is an epidemic that harms women's ability to get ahead and to live happy, meaningful lives, in this powerful, eye-opening work in the vein of Naomi Wolf, Peggy Orenstein, and Sheryl Sandberg. Today’s young women face a bewildering set of contradictions when it comes to beauty. They don’t want to be Barbie dolls but, like generations of women before them, are told they must look like them. They’re angry about the media’s treatment of women but hungrily consume the very outlets that belittle them. They mock modern culture’s absurd beauty ideal and make videos exposing Photoshopping tricks, but feel pressured to emulate the same images they criticize by posing with a "skinny arm." They understand that what they see isn’t real but still download apps to airbrush their selfies. Yet these same young women are fierce fighters for the issues they care about. They are ready to fight back against their beauty-sick culture and create a different world for themselves, but they need a way forward. In Beauty Sick, Dr. Renee Engeln, whose TEDx talk on beauty sickness has received more than 250,000 views, reveals the shocking consequences of our obsession with girls’ appearance on their emotional and physical health and their wallets and ambitions, including depression, eating disorders, disruptions in cognitive processing, and lost money and time. Combining scientific studies with the voices of real women of all ages, she makes clear that to truly fulfill their potential, we must break free from cultural forces that feed destructive desires, attitudes, and words—from fat-shaming to denigrating commentary about other women. She provides inspiration and workable solutions to help girls and women overcome negative attitudes and embrace their whole selves, to transform their lives, claim the futures they deserve, and, ultimately, change their world.

Beauty Sick

Author : Renee Engeln
Publisher : Harper
ISBN 13 : 9781538415863
Total Pages : 383 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (158 download)

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Book Synopsis Beauty Sick by : Renee Engeln

Download or read book Beauty Sick written by Renee Engeln and published by Harper. This book was released on 2017 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today's young women are angry about the media's treatment of women but hungrily consume the very outlets that belittle them. Engeln reveals the shocking consequences of our obsession with girls' appearance on their emotional and physical health and their wallets and ambitions, including depression, eating disorders, disruptions in cognitive processing, and lost money and time. To truly fulfill their potential, we must break free from cultural forces that feed destructive desires, attitudes, and words. She provides inspiration and workable solutions to help girls and women overcome negative attitudes and embrace their whole selves.

The sick man's comfort book

Author : Philip Bennett Power
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 144 pages
Book Rating : 4.R/5 (5 download)

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Book Synopsis The sick man's comfort book by : Philip Bennett Power

Download or read book The sick man's comfort book written by Philip Bennett Power and published by . This book was released on 1876 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Consumptive Chic

Author : Carolyn A. Day
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1350009407
Total Pages : 208 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (5 download)

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Book Synopsis Consumptive Chic by : Carolyn A. Day

Download or read book Consumptive Chic written by Carolyn A. Day and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-10-05 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, there was a tubercular 'moment' in which perceptions of the consumptive disease became inextricably tied to contemporary concepts of beauty, playing out in the clothing fashions of the day. With the ravages of the illness widely regarded as conferring beauty on the sufferer, it became commonplace to regard tuberculosis as a positive affliction, one to be emulated in both beauty practices and dress. While medical writers of the time believed that the fashionable way of life of many women actually rendered them susceptible to the disease, Carolyn A. Day investigates the deliberate and widespread flouting of admonitions against these fashion practices in the pursuit of beauty. Through an exploration of contemporary social trends and medical advice revealed in medical writing, literature and personal papers, Consumptive Chic uncovers the intimate relationship between fashionable women's clothing, and medical understandings of the illness. Illustrated with over 40 full color fashion plates, caricatures, medical images, and photographs of original garments, this is a compelling story of the intimate relationship between the body, beauty, and disease - and the rise of 'tubercular chic'.

The Morning Sickness Companion

Author : Elizabeth Kaledin
Publisher : St. Martin's Griffin
ISBN 13 : 1466882565
Total Pages : 150 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (668 download)

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Book Synopsis The Morning Sickness Companion by : Elizabeth Kaledin

Download or read book The Morning Sickness Companion written by Elizabeth Kaledin and published by St. Martin's Griffin. This book was released on 2014-09-30 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's frustrating and a nuisance--and it can be a major obstacle to experiencing the joy of pregnancy. But morning sickness doesn't always strike in the morning, and for many women it doesn't even strike--it's an ever-present part of their pregnancy, with symptoms ranging from mild nausea and exhaustion to crippling depression and physical illness. We all know the standard suggestions--crackers and tea, Jell-O and ginger ale--but when they don't seem like enough, what can women really do to manage their symptoms and recover the happiness their pregnancy should bring? As debilitating as morning sickness is, we don't hear much about it. But finally, just when it seems as though there's nothing out there, women have somewhere to turn. Elizabeth Kaledin's The Morning Sickness Companion is a book by and for women suffering morning sickness. Morning sickness is a reality of pregnancy--many women are affected--and this book is dedicated to them. It fills a major void in pregnancy literature, providing a brief history of morning sickness, all the latest scientific thinking, research on its emotional toll, and lots of reassuring tips and advice from other women about what they ate, how sick they really were, sources of relief, and how to survive, since the fact is it is nearly inevitable. Engaging, warm, often funny, and always informative, The Morning Sickness Companion offers women who are suffering the wisdom and comfort they really need.

How to Be Sick

Author : Toni Bernhard
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 0861716264
Total Pages : 217 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (617 download)

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Book Synopsis How to Be Sick by : Toni Bernhard

Download or read book How to Be Sick written by Toni Bernhard and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-09-14 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This life-affirming, instructive and thoroughly inspiring book is a must-read for anyone who is--or who might one day be--sick. And it can also be the perfect gift of guidance, encouragement, and uplifting inspiration to family, friends, and loved ones struggling with the many terrifying or disheartening life changes that come so close on the heels of a diagnosis of a chronic condition or even life-threatening illness. The author--who became ill while a university law professor in the prime of her career--tells the reader how she got sick and, to her and her partner's bewilderment, stayed that way. Toni had been a longtime meditator, going on long meditation retreats and spending many hours rigorously practicing, but soon discovered that she simply could no longer engage in those difficult and taxing forms. She had to learn ways to make "being sick" the heart of her spiritual practice--and through truly learning how to be sick, she learned how, even with many physical and energetic limitations, to live a life of equanimity, compassion, and joy. And whether we ourselves are sick now or not, we can learn these vital arts of living well from "How to Be Sick."

Kore

Author : Andrzej Szczeklik
Publisher : Catapult
ISBN 13 : 1619021382
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (19 download)

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Book Synopsis Kore by : Andrzej Szczeklik

Download or read book Kore written by Andrzej Szczeklik and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2012-11-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An eminent Polish physician reflects on his lifetime practice of medicine . . . A profound celebration of the human spirit.” —Kirkus Reviews There is a grand tradition of physicians who are also great writers and philosophers. When his first book, Catharsis, was published in English, critics from Seamus Heaney to Czeslaw Milosz stood to applaud. Now Andrzej Szczeklik has followed with an ever deeper and more accomplished book. It has become unfortunately rare for a scientist or doctor to find his grounding in a broad understanding of literature and the humanities. But in Kore, the author insists that only with a curiosity thoroughly at home in both worlds can one expect to discover what we should mean about sickness and about the soul. No tedious academic, Szczeklik writes with the grace of a poet and the ease of a fine storyteller. Anecdotes drawn from a personal immersion in art, music, and literature are woven with reports on experimental medicine and daily clinical experience. From DNA and the re–creation of the Spanish Flu virus, to contemporary research in genetics, cancer, neurology, and the AIDS virus, from Symptoms and Shadows, to Dying and Death, to Enchantment of Love, every chapter of this book is alive and engaging. The result is a life–affirming work of science, philosophy, art, and spirituality. “No medical experience necessary: readers need only approach with a love of the human body and an understanding of how it relates to emotion and story . . . Readers may find it difficult to keep up, but few are likely to forget this book.” —Publishers Weekly

A Beautiful Sickness

Author : Thomas Hauser
Publisher : University of Arkansas Press
ISBN 13 : 9781557287182
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (871 download)

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Book Synopsis A Beautiful Sickness by : Thomas Hauser

Download or read book A Beautiful Sickness written by Thomas Hauser and published by University of Arkansas Press. This book was released on 2001-07-01 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the second collection of articles on professional boxing to be published in book form by acclaimed writer Thomas Hauser. It offers unique insights into Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Shane Mosely, Ray Jones Jr. and many more superstars, as well as an insider's critique of the sweet science today. Satirical, whimsical, and pungent, Hauser deftly maps the politics and poli-tricks of the world's only true universal sport.

Beyond Foundations

Author : Thomas J. Grites
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1118922891
Total Pages : 421 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (189 download)

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Book Synopsis Beyond Foundations by : Thomas J. Grites

Download or read book Beyond Foundations written by Thomas J. Grites and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-09-19 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sharpen advising expertise by exploring critical issues affecting the field Beyond Foundations, a core resource for experienced academic advisors, gives practitioners insight into important issues affecting academic advising. In addition to gaining understanding of foundational concepts and pressing concerns, master advisors engage with case studies to clarify their roles as educators of students, as thought leaders in institutions, and as advocates for the profession. Pillar documents—the NACADA Core Values, NACADA Concept of Academic Advising, and CAS Standards—serve as sources of both information and inspiration for those seeking to improve advising. New strategies inform advisors helping a diverse student population delineate meaningful educational goals. Each chapter prompts productive discussions with fellow advisors interested in cultivating advising excellence. To promote advisor influence in higher education, experienced contributors explain new trends—including the impact of external forces and legal issues on postsecondary institutions—and the evolution of advising as a profession and a field of inquiry. Expert insight and practical focus contribute to the development of experienced advisors. Use existing resources in new ways to master advising roles and encourage student success Apply theory to advance advising practice Create and optimize professional development opportunities Establish recognition for the contributions of academic advisors to the institution and higher education Face challenges created by the changing higher education landscape Advisors must meet the expectations of students, parents, faculty members, administrators, and outside agencies, all while navigating an increasingly complex range of issues presented by a student population unlike any that has come before. Beyond Foundations provides the insight and clarity advisors need to help students achieve their educational goals and to advance the field.

Science is Beautiful: Disease and Medicine

Author : Colin Salter
Publisher : Batsford Books
ISBN 13 : 1849944857
Total Pages : 435 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (499 download)

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Book Synopsis Science is Beautiful: Disease and Medicine by : Colin Salter

Download or read book Science is Beautiful: Disease and Medicine written by Colin Salter and published by Batsford Books. This book was released on 2018-02-15 with total page 435 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our understanding of disease and the powers of medicine today are unparalleled, and their documentation has increased signficantly. Science is Beautiful collects the most fascinating microscopic photographs of our diseases along with the medicines we use to treat them. These photographs are profoundly fascinating – and also beautiful. Featured are some of the most illuminating microscopic images of bacteria, viruses and cancers ever captured, now made possible by electron micrograph technology. Potentially fatal diseases such as cancer and Ebola are included, and minor complaints such as Staphylococcus bacteria and dental plaque are shown for their surprising beauty. Other photographs reveal what human cells look like when suffering from Alzheimer's, from osteoporosis, or from HIV. It also uncovers some diseases specific to animals. But there are also dazzling images of the crystals, powders and potions that we take to cure ourselves, including magnified versions of aspirin, insulin, morphine and caffeine. This collection of images, as beautiful as any artwork, can be enjoyed purely as a visual voyage but also as a way to understand more of the science behind the image, whether it's the work of a meningitis virus, our chromosomes in a cancer cell or the breakdown of painkillers. Each image includes the scale of the photography as well as the scientific details in layman's terms.

Illness as Metaphor

Author : Susan Sontag
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (62 download)

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Book Synopsis Illness as Metaphor by : Susan Sontag

Download or read book Illness as Metaphor written by Susan Sontag and published by . This book was released on 1988 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

On Being Ill

Author : Virginia Woolf
Publisher : Wesleyan University Press
ISBN 13 : 0819580910
Total Pages : 161 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (195 download)

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Book Synopsis On Being Ill by : Virginia Woolf

Download or read book On Being Ill written by Virginia Woolf and published by Wesleyan University Press. This book was released on 2012-11-06 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Virginia Woolf’s daring essay on how illness transforms our perception, plus an essay by Woolf’s mother from the caregiver’s perspective: “Revelatory.” —Booklist This new publication of “On Being Ill” with “Notes from Sick Rooms” presents Virginia Woolf and her mother, Julia Stephen, in textual conversation for the first time in literary history. In the poignant and humorous essay “On Being Ill,” Woolf observes that though illness is part of every human being’s experience, it is not celebrated as a subject of great literature in the way that love and war are embraced by writers and readers. We must, Woolf says, invent a new language to describe pain. Illness, she observes, enhances our perceptions and reduces self-consciousness; it is “the great confessional.” Woolf discusses the taboos associated with illness, and she explores how it changes our relationship to the world around us. “Notes from Sick Rooms,” meanwhile, addresses illness from the caregiver’s perspective. With clarity, humor, and pathos, Julia Stephen offers concrete information that remains useful to nurses and caregivers today. This edition also includes an introduction to “Notes from Sick Rooms” by Mark Hussey, founding editor of Woolf Studies Annual, and a poignant afterword by Rita Charon, MD, founder of the field of Narrative Medicine. In addition, Hermione Lee’s brilliant introduction to “On Being Ill” offers a superb overview of Woolf’s life and writing. “Woolf’s inquiry into illness and its impact on the mind is paired with her mother’s observations about caring for the body. Julia Stephen . . . had no professional training but took to heart Florence Nightingale’s precept that every woman is a nurse and emulated Nightingale’s best-selling Notes on Nursing with her own “Notes from Sick Rooms.” In this long-overlooked, precise, and piquant little manual, Stephen is compassionate and ironic, observing that everyone deserves to be tenderly nursed while addressing the small evil of crumbs in bed. This unprecedented literary reunion of mother and daughter is stunning on many fronts, but physician and literary scholar Rita Charon focuses on the essentials in her astute afterword, writing that Woolf’s perspective as a patient and Stephen’s as a nurse together illuminate the goal of care—to listen, to recognize, to imagine, to honor.” —Booklist “Woolf and Stephen will certainly change the way readers think of illness.” —Publishers Weekly

The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness

Author : Sarah Ramey
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 030774194X
Total Pages : 434 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (77 download)

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Book Synopsis The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness by : Sarah Ramey

Download or read book The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness written by Sarah Ramey and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2021-05-11 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The darkly funny memoir of Sarah Ramey’s years-long battle with a mysterious illness that doctors thought was all in her head—but wasn’t. In her harrowing, darkly funny, and unforgettable memoir, Sarah Ramey recounts the decade-long saga of how a seemingly minor illness in her senior year of college turned into a prolonged and elusive condition that destroyed her health but that doctors couldn't diagnose or treat. Worse, as they failed to cure her, they hinted that her devastating symptoms were psychological. The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness is a memoir with a mission: to help the millions of (mostly) women who suffer from unnamed or misunderstood conditions—autoimmune illnesses, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic Lyme disease, chronic pain, and many more. Ramey's pursuit of a diagnosis and cure for her own mysterious illness becomes a page-turning medical mystery that reveals a new understanding of today's chronic illnesses as ecological in nature, driven by modern changes to the basic foundations of health, from the quality of our sleep, diet, and social connections to the state of our microbiomes. Her book will open eyes, change lives, and, ultimately, change medicine. The Lady's Handbook for Her Mysterious Illness is a revelation and an inspiration for millions of women whose legitimate health complaints are ignored.

Stories of Sickness

Author : Howard Brody
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199759790
Total Pages : 310 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (997 download)

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Book Synopsis Stories of Sickness by : Howard Brody

Download or read book Stories of Sickness written by Howard Brody and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2002-10-31 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our personalities and our identities are intimately bound up with the stories that we tell to organize and to make sense of our lives. To understand the human meaning of illness, we therefore must turn to the stories we tell about illness, suffering, and medical care. Stories of Sickness explores the many dimensions of what illness means to the sufferers and to those around them, drawing on depictions of illness in great works of literature and in nonfiction accounts. The exploration is primarily philosophical but incorporates approaches from literature and from the medical social sciences. When it was first published in 1987, Stories of Sickness helped to inaugurate a renewed interest in the importance of narrative studies in health care. For the Second Edition the text has been thoroughly revised and significantly expanded. Four almost entirely new chapters have been added on the nature, complexities, and rigor of narrative ethics and how it is carried out. There is also an additional chapter on maladaptive ways of being sick that deals in greater depth with disability issues. Health care professionals, students of medicine and bioethics, and ordinary people coping with illness, no less than scholars in the health care humanities and social sciences, will find much value in this volume. Unique Features: *Philosophically sophisticated yet clearly written and easily accessible *Interdisciplinary approach--combines philosophy, literature, health care, social sciences *Contains many fascinating stories and vignettes of illness drawn from both fiction and nonfiction *A new and comprehensive overview of the "hot topic" of narrative ethics in medicine and health care

Seeking Sickness

Author : Alan Cassels
Publisher : Greystone Books Ltd
ISBN 13 : 1771000333
Total Pages : 193 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (71 download)

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Book Synopsis Seeking Sickness by : Alan Cassels

Download or read book Seeking Sickness written by Alan Cassels and published by Greystone Books Ltd. This book was released on 2012-04-30 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Alan Cassels strips layers of expectation, hype, jargon, false-starts, and conflicts of interest off the medical screening mantra.” —Nortin M. Hadler, author of Worried Sick Why wouldn’t you want to be screened to see if you’re at risk for cancer, heart disease, or another potentially lethal condition? After all, better safe than sorry. Right? Not so fast, says Alan Cassels. His Seeking Sickness takes us inside the world of medical screening, where well-meaning practitioners and a profit-motivated industry offer to save our lives by exploiting our fears. He writes that promoters of screening overpromise on its benefits and downplay its harms, which can range from the merely annoying to the life threatening. If you’re facing a screening test for breast or prostate cancer, high cholesterol, or low testosterone, someone is about to turn you into a patient. You need to ask yourself one simple question: Am I ready for all the things that could go wrong? “With engaging clarity backed by academic rigor, Cassels discusses a variety of popular investigational procedures . . . an excellent way to start the important process of self-education.” —Quill & Quire “Smartly written and very readable.” —Brian Goldman, MD, author of The Secret Language of Doctors “Cassels tackles this touchy topic, looking at it test by test. His overarching message is that modern medicine has ‘overpromised’ with claims that screening will save our lives. He contends that with the lack of hard evidence on benefits, the evidence of harm from by such screening, as well as the multi-billion dollar interests at stake, we should approach this kind of screening with great precaution.” —Canadian Women’s Health Network

An American Sickness

Author : Elisabeth Rosenthal
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0698407180
Total Pages : 434 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (984 download)

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Book Synopsis An American Sickness by : Elisabeth Rosenthal

Download or read book An American Sickness written by Elisabeth Rosenthal and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-04-11 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times bestseller/Washington Post Notable Book of 2017/NPR Best Books of 2017/Wall Street Journal Best Books of 2017 "This book will serve as the definitive guide to the past and future of health care in America.”—Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies and The Gene At a moment of drastic political upheaval, An American Sickness is a shocking investigation into our dysfunctional healthcare system - and offers practical solutions to its myriad problems. In these troubled times, perhaps no institution has unraveled more quickly and more completely than American medicine. In only a few decades, the medical system has been overrun by organizations seeking to exploit for profit the trust that vulnerable and sick Americans place in their healthcare. Our politicians have proven themselves either unwilling or incapable of reining in the increasingly outrageous costs faced by patients, and market-based solutions only seem to funnel larger and larger sums of our money into the hands of corporations. Impossibly high insurance premiums and inexplicably large bills have become facts of life; fatalism has set in. Very quickly Americans have been made to accept paying more for less. How did things get so bad so fast? Breaking down this monolithic business into the individual industries—the hospitals, doctors, insurance companies, and drug manufacturers—that together constitute our healthcare system, Rosenthal exposes the recent evolution of American medicine as never before. How did healthcare, the caring endeavor, become healthcare, the highly profitable industry? Hospital systems, which are managed by business executives, behave like predatory lenders, hounding patients and seizing their homes. Research charities are in bed with big pharmaceutical companies, which surreptitiously profit from the donations made by working people. Patients receive bills in code, from entrepreneurial doctors they never even saw. The system is in tatters, but we can fight back. Dr. Elisabeth Rosenthal doesn't just explain the symptoms, she diagnoses and treats the disease itself. In clear and practical terms, she spells out exactly how to decode medical doublespeak, avoid the pitfalls of the pharmaceuticals racket, and get the care you and your family deserve. She takes you inside the doctor-patient relationship and to hospital C-suites, explaining step-by-step the workings of a system badly lacking transparency. This is about what we can do, as individual patients, both to navigate the maze that is American healthcare and also to demand far-reaching reform. An American Sickness is the frontline defense against a healthcare system that no longer has our well-being at heart.