Health Care Administration

Medical students and physicians-in-training embark on a long journey that, although steeped in scientific learning and technical skill building, includes little guidance on the emotional and interpersonal dimensions of becoming a healer. Written for anyone in the health care community who hopes to grow emotionally and cognitively in the way they interact with patients, On Becoming a Healer explains how to foster doctor-patient relationships that are mutually nourishing.

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.

On December 24, 1992, six-year-old Lauren Rudolph was hospitalized with excruciating stomach pain. Less than a week later she was dead. Doctors were baffled: How could a healthy child become so sick so quickly? After a frenzied investigation, public-health officials announced that the cause was E. coli O157:H7, and the source was hamburger meat served at a Jack in the Box restaurant. During this unprecedented crisis, four children died and over seven hundred others became gravely ill.

Lurking in our homes, hiding in our offices, and polluting the air we breathe is something sinister. Something we’ve turned a blind eye to for far too long. Dr. Leonardo Trasande, a pediatrician, professor, and world-renowned researcher, tells the story of how our everyday surroundings are making us sicker, fatter, and poorer. Through a blend of narrative, scientific detective work, and concrete information about the connections between chemicals and disease, he reveals what we can do to protect ourselves and our families in the short-term, and how we can help bring the change we deserve.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are all too aware of the urgent health inequalities that plague our world. But these inequalities have always been urgent: modern medicine has a colonial and racist history. Here, in an essential and searingly truthful account, Annabel Sowemimo unravels the colonial roots of modern medicine. Tackling systemic racism, hidden histories and healthcare myths, Sowemimo recounts her own experiences as a doctor, patient and activist.

From Joseph Romm, Chief Science Advisor for National Geographic's Years of Living Dangerously series and one of Rolling Stone's "100 people who are changing America," Climate Change offers user-friendly, scientifically rigorous answers to the most difficult (and commonly politicized) questions surrounding what climatologist Lonnie Thompson has deemed "a clear and present danger to civilization."

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.

The coronavirus pandemic has devastated lives and livelihoods around the world - and continues to do so. These personal tragedies will, and must, be told and heard. There is, however, also a truthful and objective scientific narrative to be written about how the virus played out and how the world set about dealing with it. Spike is that story - from the inside. Its author, Jeremy Farrar, is one of the UK's leading scientists and a - member of the SAGE emergency committee.

A renowned cardiologist and Harvard professor spells out the future digital shift of medicine—and how it will impact the lives not only of patients and health care professionals but of all humans.

Teeth takes listeners on a disturbing journey into America's silent epidemic of oral disease, exposing the hidden connections between tooth decay and stunted job prospects, low educational achievement, social mobility, and the troubling state of our public health.

Well-heeled American corporations have long had a financial stake in undermining scientific consensus and manufacturing uncertainty. In The Triumph of Doubt, former Obama and Clinton official David Michaels details how corrupt science becomes public policy - and where it's happening today.

Most consumers agree their service experiences with hospitals, clinics, and physicians fall well short of their service experiences with hotels, resorts, and restaurants. So, what would their experiences be like if healthcare providers served them the same way hospitality providers do? Given that both industries share many common service touchpoints, one wonders whether healthcare service providers could adopt principles of hospitality to enhance the patient experience. The insights shared in this book reveal the answer: yes!

Patients at Risk: The Rise of the Nurse Practitioner and Physician Assistant in Healthcare exposes a vast conspiracy of political maneuvering and corporate greed that has led to the replacement of qualified medical professionals by lesser trained practitioners. As corporations seek to save money and government agencies aim to increase constituent access, minimum qualifications for the guardians of our nation’s healthcare continue to decline - with deadly consequences.

Today’s deliberations about a revamped health care system are stuck and in need of fresh analysis and a new vision. Health Care Revolt sets out to provide just that and at a most propitious time in US history. Dr. Michael Fine’s manifesto frames the questions more expansively than others before him and offers an impassioned road map for a nation confused about which healthcare direction to travel.

How can America's healthcare system be transformed to provide consistently higher-quality and lower-cost care? Nothing else in healthcare matters more. Prescription for the Future identifies some standout medical organizations that have achieved higher-quality, more patient-focused, and lower-cost care, and from their examples distills 12 transformational practices that could transform the entire healthcare sector.

Despite billions of dollars invested in medical research and technological breakthroughs in American healthcare made to prolong and improve the lives of patients, a devastating statistic remains. Two thirds of Americans die in healthcare institutions tethered to machines and tubes at bankrupting costs, despite research that shows 80 percent of Americans would prefer to spend their last days in their homes surrounded by loved ones.

Health care as it stands today needs to be re-imagined. Redefining the Boundaries of Medicine by Paul Cerrato and Dr. John Halamka challenges the profession to renegotiate its priorities and address the fact that it’s become timid and reluctant to explore new care delivery models. The guiding premise of this book is that rethinking and reimagining the way medicine is practiced in the 21st century will improve health outcomes, and that technology is central to this transformation.

When Abortion Was a Crime is the must-listen book on abortion history. Originally published ahead of the thirtieth anniversary of Roe v. Wade, this award-winning study was the first to examine the entire period during which abortion was illegal in the United States, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century and ending with that monumental case in 1973. When Abortion Was a Crime is filled with intimate stories and nuanced analysis, demonstrating how abortion was criminalized and policed—and how millions of women sought abortions regardless of the law.

The pathophysiology of COVID-19 garners much attention in health care settings, but the illness is not limited to its biological impact—the pandemic’s effects are a mosaic of social, economic, political, environmental, and evolutionary influences. It led to major global changes that compromised economies, health care systems, and global connectivity. Written by a group of Canadian students, Under the Weather: COVID-19 Biosocial System Dynamics takes an interdisciplinary outlook on the disease and how people have come together in dire times to combat the disease.

Pinter and Martin's Why it Matters series offer succinct, balanced and evidence-based introductions to the topics that affect family life in the 21st century. The Politics of Breastfeeding, first published in 1988, described how big business and vested interests influence the intimate relationship between mothers and their babies to the detriment of all, rich or poor, in the West or in the developing world. In Why the Politics of Breastfeeding Matter, the central ideas of the politics of breastfeeding are distilled into a concise form, making it the perfect introduction to understanding the complex forces that govern what many think of as a simple choice to breastfeed or not.