American Health Care

In 2007, David Goldhill’s father died from infections acquired in a hospital - one of more than two hundred thousand avoidable deaths per year caused by medical error. The bill was enormous - and Medicare paid it. These circumstances left Goldhill angry and determined to understand how world-class technology and personnel could coexist with such carelessness - and how a business that failed so miserably could be paid in full.

In Medical Bondage, Cooper Owens examines a wide range of scientific literature and less formal communications in which gynecologists created and disseminated medical fictions about their patients, such as their belief that black enslaved women could withstand pain better than white "ladies". Even as they were advancing medicine, these doctors were legitimizing, for decades to come, groundless theories related to whiteness and blackness, men and women, and the inferiority of other races or nationalities.

In 1994, The Bell Curve and its controversial thesis catapulted the topic of genetic racial differences in IQ to the forefront of a renewed and heated debate. Now, in A Terrible Thing to Waste, award-winning science writer Harriet A. Washington adds her incisive analysis to the fray, arguing that IQ is a biased and flawed metric, but that it is useful for tracking cognitive damage. Featuring extensive scientific research and Washington's sharp, lively reporting, A Terrible Thing to Waste is sure to outrage, transform the conversation, and inspire debate.

Between micro- and macro-aggressions at school, at work, and everywhere in between, it’s tough to prioritize physical and mental wellness as a Black woman, especially with a constant news cycle highlighting Black trauma. Now, with The Self-Care for Black Women you’ll find more than 150 exercises that will help you radically choose to put yourself first.

Here is the inspiring story of how Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, alongside a team of researchers, parents, friends, and community leaders, discovered that the children of Flint, Michigan, were being exposed to lead in their tap water - and then battled her own government and a brutal backlash to expose that truth to the world. Paced like a scientific thriller, What the Eyes Don’t See reveals how misguided austerity policies, broken democracy, and callous bureaucratic indifference placed an entire city at risk.

The first full-length biography of the Civil War surgeon who, over the course of the war’s bloodiest battles - from Antietam to Gettysburg - redefined military medicine.

Jonathan Letterman was an outpost medical officer serving in Indian country in the years before the Civil War, responsible for the care of just hundreds of men. But when he was appointed the chief medical officer for the Army of the Potomac, he revolutionized combat medicine over the course of four major battles - Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg - that produced unprecedented numbers of casualties.

Lloyd I. Sederer, MD, recounts the unfettered story of how McLean survived impending closure or sale to once again prosper and regain its international stature as the hospital where you would want a loved one to be treated for a psychiatric or substance use disorder.

This American Girls Book About Puberty audiobook is a must-have resource for any girl looking to understand her body better, build self-esteem, and practice good hygiene and self-care habits. With easy-to-follow language, this audiobook covers everything from the female reproductive system and the menstrual cycle to skin and hair care, nutrition and exercise, emotional health, and building healthy relationships. The Girls Body Care 101 is a comprehensive guide that every growing girl should have in her library.

At the height of World War I, history’s most lethal influenza virus erupted in an army camp in Kansas, moved east with American troops, then exploded, killing as many as 100 million people worldwide. It killed more people in twenty-four months than AIDS killed in twenty-four years, more in a year than the Black Death killed in a century. But this was not the Middle Ages, and 1918 marked the first collision of science and epidemic disease.

Until the 1970s, if you suffered a medical crisis, your chances of survival were minimal. A 9-1-1 call might bring police or even the local funeral home. But that all changed with Freedom House EMS in Pittsburgh, a group of Black men who became America’s first paramedics and set the gold standard for emergency medicine around the world, only to have their story and their legacy erased—until now.

Few of us need convincing that the American health insurance system needs reform. But many of the existing proposals focus on expanding one relatively successful piece of the system or building in piecemeal additions. These proposals miss the point. As the Stanford health economist Liran Einav and the MIT economist and MacArthur Genius Amy Finkelstein argue, our health care system was never deliberately designed, but rather pieced together to deal with issues as they became politically relevant.

It's no secret that American health care has become too costly and politicized to help everyone. So where do you turn if you can't afford doctors, or don't trust them? In this book, Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling examines the growing universe of non-traditional treatments—including some that are really non-traditional. With costs skyrocketing and anti-science sentiment spreading, the so-called "medical freedom" movement has grown. Now it faces its greatest challenge: going mainstream.

This audiobook is full of advice, tips, and facts from pediatrician Dr. Cara Natterson about how the body changes. Boys will find age-appropriate answers to questions about voice changes, acne, bad breath, shaving, and everything in between.

Considered the definitive history of the American healthcare system, The Social Transformation of American Medicine examines how the roles of doctors, hospitals, health plans, and government programs have evolved over the last two and a half centuries. Updated with a new preface and an epilogue analyzing developments since the early 1980s, this new edition is a must-listen for anyone concerned about the future of our fraught healthcare system.

From yellow fever to smallpox to polio to AIDS to COVID-19, epidemics have prompted Americans to make choices and answer questions about their basic values and their laws. In five concise chapters, historian John Fabian Witt traces the legal history of epidemics, showing how infectious disease has both shaped, and been shaped by, the law.

We think of transplant surgery as one of the medical wonders of the modern world. But transplant surgery is as ancient as the pyramids, with a history more surprising than we might expect. Paul Craddock takes us on a journey—from sixteenth-century skin grafting to contemporary stem cell transplants—uncovering stories of operations performed by unexpected people in unexpected places. Bringing together philosophy, science and cultural history, Spare Parts explores how transplant surgery constantly tested the boundaries between human, animal, and machine.

Developing life-changing drugs is risky and expensive, but that’s not what makes them unaffordable. Drug pricing is a staple of every news cycle and political debate. And while we’ve struggled for decades to agree on solutions that serve all patients without jeopardizing the invention of new medicines, many Americans suffer because they can’t afford the drugs they need. Do we really have to choose between affordability and innovation?

Guy Stuff Feelings: Everything You Need to Know About Your Emotions is full of advice on dealing with the new feelings and emotions that are a part of puberty. Boys will find helpful tips from a pediatrician on identifying, managing, and expressing emotions—from anger to sadness to embarrassment to happiness—in positive ways.

Where does one go without health insurance, when turned away by hospitals, clinics, and doctors? In The People’s Hospital, physician Ricardo Nuila’s stunning debut, we follow the lives of five uninsured Houstonians as their struggle for survival leads them to a hospital where insurance comes second to genuine care.

Navigating the complexities of the American healthcare system can be a daunting task for any medical professional, but it presents unique challenges for foreign medical graduates. "Guide to the American Healthcare System for the Foreign Medical Graduate" is an essential resource designed to demystify these challenges and provide a comprehensive roadmap to success.