Health Care

Three out of four people addicted to heroin probably started on a prescription opioid, according to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the United States alone, 16,000 people die each year as a result of prescription opioid overdose. But perhaps the most frightening aspect of the prescription drug epidemic is that it's built on well-meaning doctors treating patients with real problems.

The Lobotomist explores one of the darkest chapters of American medicine: the desperate attempt to treat the hundreds of thousands of psychiatric patients in need of help during the middle decades of the 20th century. Into this crisis stepped Walter Freeman, MD, who saw a solution in lobotomy, a brain operation intended to reduce the severity of psychotic symptoms. Drawing on Freeman's documents and interviews with Freeman's family, Jack El-Hai takes a penetrating look at the life and work of this complex scientific genius.

At least one hysterectomy is performed every minute of the year, making it the most common gynecological surgery worldwide. By the age of sixty-five, one out of five people born with a uterus will have it removed. So, why do we seldom talk about this surgery? Get It Out weaves centuries of medical history with rich qualitative data from 100 women, trans men, and nonbinary people who had, want, or are considering hysterectomy.

We all want to have young and healthy skin, yet the beauty industry is so mixed in its messages that most consumers have no way to tell which skincare products are helpful and which claims are pure hype. In this book, skincare expert Dr. Fayne Frey explores the “essential” product categories that are entirely unnecessary, exposes how many well-known skincare ingredients have no scientific basis, and recommends truly effective skincare products and regimens that are easy and affordable.

Mastering Healthcare Excellence offers a comprehensive guide for healthcare leaders aiming to achieve unparalleled results. Through practical insights and strategic frameworks, this book empowers executives to align their teams, priorities, and processes effectively. Discover proven strategies to navigate complex challenges, drive innovation, and lead with excellence in today's dynamic healthcare landscape.

In the seventh edition of Mayo Clinic on Alzheimer's Disease and Other Dementias, expert neurologists from the Mayo Clinic organize this new research into a thorough and digestible guidebook that provides caregivers with the most up-to-date information regarding the disease.

What does aging mean to you? We often look at aging through the lens of what is lost, not what is gained. But as we grow older, we can find the freedom to cultivate a deeper, more meaningful experience of life. “The journey through midlife and beyond,” says Cheryl Richardson, “is when we make the shift from less ego to more soul.” With Self-Care for the Wisdom Years, this bestselling author shares her most valuable insights for helping you age consciously, so you can flourish as a wise and compassionate elder.

Revitalize connections through engaging memory care activities, fostering joy and clarity, even if you're balancing the challenges of caregiving.

Between 1999 and 2017, an estimated 250,000 Americans died from overdoses involving prescription painkillers, a plague ignited by Purdue Pharma’s aggressive marketing of OxyContin. Families, working class and wealthy, have been torn apart, businesses destroyed, and public officials pushed to the brink. Meanwhile, the drugmaker’s owners, Raymond and Mortimer Sackler, whose names adorn museums worldwide, made enormous fortunes from the commercial success of OxyContin.

Natural healing for pets has emerged into the mainstream - veterinarians across the nation are now providing acupuncture, chiropractic, and other alternative methods. With Energy Healing for Animals, acclaimed animal communicator Joan Ranquet offers an essential guide for anyone seeking to enhance their pet's health, longevity, and quality of life - and deepen their bond with a beloved companion.

Discover the self-care tips specifically designed for your Enneagram type with this simple yet illuminating guide from popular Enneagram expert Christina S. Wilcox.

Can you see or sense health problems in others? Are you a healthcare professional who feels trapped and unable to truly serve your clients your way? Or, have you had your own set of medical health challenges and were able to overcome them through awakening your own intuition? If so, this may be a sign of the awakening of your gift, and you will need to build necessary skills to harness its power. Holistic physical therapist, human MRI, and master healer Vivian S. De Guzman has guided thousands toward honing their intuitive gifts for decades.

With a death toll of between 50 and 100 million people and a global reach, the Spanish flu of 1918–1920 was the greatest human disaster. And yet, in our popular conception it exists largely as a footnote to World War I. Laura Spinney recounts the story of an overlooked pandemic, tracing it from Alaska to Brazil, from Persia to Spain and from South Africa to Odessa. She shows how the pandemic was shaped by the interaction of a virus and the humans it encountered, and how this devastating natural experiment put both the ingenuity and the vulnerability of humans to the test.

In gripping prose, one of the world's leading cardiac surgeons lays bare both the wonder and the horror of a life spent a heartbeat away from death. When Stephen Westaby witnessed a patient die on the table during open-heart surgery for the first time, he was struck by the quiet, determined way the surgeons walked away. As he soon understood, this detachment is a crucial survival strategy in a profession where death is only a heartbeat away. In Open Heart, Westaby reflects on over 11,000 surgeries, showing us why the procedures have never become routine and will never be.

The story of poison is the story of power. For centuries, royal families have feared the gut-roiling, vomit-inducing agony of a little something added to their food or wine by an enemy. To avoid poison, they depended on tasters, unicorn horns, and antidotes tested on condemned prisoners. Servants licked the royal family's spoons, tried on their underpants, and tested their chamber pots. Ironically, royals terrified of poison were unknowingly poisoning themselves daily with their cosmetics, medications, and filthy living conditions.

In Health Justice Now, Timothy Faust explains what single payer is, why we don't yet have it, and how it can be won. He identifies the actors that have misled us for profit and political gain, dispels the myth that healthcare needs to be personally expensive, shows how we can smoothly transition to a new model, and reveals the slate of humane and progressive reforms that we can only achieve with single payer as the springboard.

Measles, once seemingly defeated, is resurgent around the globe. Why, at a time when biomedical science is so advanced, do parents turn away from vaccination, endangering their own children and the health of the wider population? Using a combination of patient narrative, historical analysis, and scientific research, Dr. Adam Ratner, pediatrician and infectious disease specialist, argues that the reawakening of measles and the subsequent coronavirus pandemic are bellwethers of forgotten knowledge—indicators of decaying trust in science and an underfunded public health infrastructure.

As a third-year Harvard Medical student doing a clinical rotation in surgery, Ronald Epstein watched an experienced surgeon fail to notice his patient's kidney turning an ominous shade of blue. In that same rotation, Epstein was awestruck by another surgeon's ability to slow down and shift between autopilot and intentionality. The difference between these two doctors left a lasting impression on Epstein and set the stage for his life's work - to identify the qualities and habits that distinguish masterful doctors from those who are merely competent.

The first major bioterror event in the United States - the anthrax attacks in October 2001 - was a clarion call for scientists who work with "hot" agents to find ways of protecting civilian populations against biological weapons. In The Demon in the Freezer, his first nonfiction book since The Hot Zone, a number-one New York Times best seller, Richard Preston takes us into the heart of USAMRIID, the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

An updated edition of the classic history of schizophrenia in America, which gives voice to generations of patients who suffered through "cures" that only deepened their suffering and impaired their hope of recovery.