Browsing Area book of the Week, January 21, 2013.

How We do Harm by Dr. Otis Brawley, MD, with Paul Greenberg.

Library Call Number:RA395.A3B72 2012.

 

             (Excerpt from the Atlantic’s review of the book): “In 2002, Dr. Brawley became chief of oncology and hematology at Grady Hospital [in Atlanta]. Though no longer in a leadership role at Grady, Brawley still practices there. His experiences at Grady partly inspired his new book…In what he calls a ‘guided tour through the back rooms of American medicine,’ Brawley not only takes on the unfolding catastrophe of U.S. healthcare, but also hits closer to home with chilling stories about irresponsible doctors here in Atlanta, such as some who dispense inappropriate, even life-threatening chemo.” 

             Dr. Brawley’s book draws on his experiences to illustrate how economics—even a doctor’s personal gain—might be influencing the overtreatment of the rich, while the poor find themselves shut off from care that might lengthen or even save their lives.  His book has unleashed a firestorm in his direction and for good reason, because it challenges the public’s assumption that all doctors are concerned with their patients’ welfare, that they are fulfilling their oath to “First, do no harm.”

             A vital read for all Americans who, at one point or another, will find themselves seeking a doctor’s care.

Browsing Area Book of the Week, September 4, 2012..

The Battle over Health Care: What Obama’s reform means for America’s future by Rosemary Gibson and Janardan Prasad Singh.  Library Call Number: RA395.A3G45 2012.
          From Publisher’s Weekly:  “Health care expert Gibson and World Bank economist Singh (coauthors of Wall of Silence) present a well-argued view that the heralded Obama health care reforms may be adverse to the public interest, since by ‘plowing even more funding into health care, the reform law cements inefficiency in the system.’ The reforms increase insurers’ market share, giving them access to 16 million new customers beginning in 2014, but proposed subsidies for individual insurance policies simply foster greater demand, enabling continuing cost increases.
          By 2030, the authors estimate that health care will consume 25 percent of the country’s income, and comprehensive insurance will be unaffordable, even with subsidies. In passionate language, they prescribe possible remedies, but many are the usual suspects, for example, tackling fraud in health care spending. Meanwhile, the prognosis that the baby boomers will overwhelm Medicare might induce the despairing reader to take two aspirins. But don’t call the doctor in the morning; a conservative estimate is that 225,000 people die every year from preventable harm in the health care system. As one observer says: ‘They harm you and they bill you for it.’”