Medical Industry

“The shortest distance between a human being and the truth,” so goes the saying, “is a story.” These stories, told by Dr. Scott Abramson based on his 40 years of medical experience and from coaching colleagues in the mission of physician communication, embody some of these human truths: truths about listening, connection, faith, bereavement, death, teamwork, empathy, courage, grace, joy, leadership, parenting, burnout, the challenges of work-life balance, and the secret of happiness.

At one time heart disease was a death sentence. By the middle of the 20th century, it was killing millions, and, as with the Black Death centuries before, physicians stood helpless. Visionaries, though, had begun to make strides earlier. On September 7, 1895, Ludwig Rehn successfully sutured the heart of a living man with a knife wound to the chest for the first time.

Carte Blanche is the alarming tale of how the right of Americans to say "no" to risky medical research is eroding at a time when we are racing to produce a vaccine and treatments for COVID-19. This medical right that we have long taken for granted was first sacrificed on the altar of military expediency in 1990 when the Department of Defense asked for and received from the FDA a waiver that permitted it to force an experimental anthrax vaccine on the ranks of ground troops headed for the Persian Gulf.

Medical student Seth Levine faces escalating stress and gallows humor as he struggles with the collapse of his romantic relationships and all preconceived notions of what it means to be a doctor. It doesn’t take long before he realizes not getting frazzled is the least of his problems. Didn’t Get Frazzled captures with distressing accuracy the gauntlet idealistic college grads must face to secure an MD and, against the odds, come out of it a better human being.

Technological innovation is deeply woven into the fabric of American culture, and is no less a basic feature of American health care. Medical technology saves lives and relieves suffering, and is enormously popular with the public, profitable for doctors, and a source of great wealth for industry. Yet its costs are rising at a dangerously unsustainable rate. The control of technology costs poses a terrible ethical and policy dilemma. How can we deny people what they may need to live and flourish?

Psychedelic drugs are making a comeback. In the mid-20th century, scientists actively studied the potential of drugs like LSD and psilocybin for treating mental health problems. After a decades-long hiatus, researchers are once again testing how effective these drugs are in relieving symptoms for a wide variety of psychiatric conditions, from depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder to posttraumatic stress disorder and substance addiction.

How has the United States, with more resources than any nation, developed a healthcare system that delivers much poorer results, at near double the cost of any other developed country - such that legendary seer Warren Buffett calls the Medical Industrial Complex "the tapeworm of American economic competitiveness"?

The Healing Cell is an easy to follow, carefully researched, and clear-eyed view of medicine many decades in the making that is now paying off with treatments that repair damaged hearts, restore sight, kill cancer, cure diabetes, heal burns, and stop the march of such degenerative diseases. The emotionally and intellectually stimulating stories throughout the audiobook dramatically illustrate that stem cell therapies can change the way we live our lives after being afflicted by a disease or trauma.

Dr. Mackowiak, a professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, offers a gripping and authoritative account of 13 patients who took center stage in world history. The result is a new understanding of how the past unfolded, as well as a sweeping survey of the history of medicine. What was the ailment that drove Caligula mad? Why did Stonewall Jackson die after having an arm amputated, when so many other Civil War soldiers survived such operations?

You might be interested in starting your own non-medical home care agency, but you’re overwhelmed with where you should begin. How do you begin the process of getting licensed? When should you start hiring? What else do you need to take care of before you can open? If you want to learn the ins and outs of getting this business started, and then be successful once you do open, then this audiobook is for you. Even if you don’t have experience working in this field, it doesn’t matter, you can do it!

Dare to Care is a book about the magic of medicine and life. Patients long for caring and connection when they are ill, and the doctors who come to this profession full of care and compassion often leave feeling drained and diluted as human beings because they forget who they are. In this audiobook, you will be reminded that essential harmony and well-being is your natural state, and what you have been looking for in any doctor you have sought. It offers an invitation to join a new bandwidth of caring, intuition, holism, and love, to ride the waves of living beyond the norm.

White coats, Hippocratic oaths, medicine as a calling–are these beneficial practices or harmful rituals? White Coat Ways traces seven medical traditions from their historical origins to their contemporary issues. Tracing these origins through common misconceptions–who really wrote the Hippocratic oath, are hospitals nonprofit–empowers the listener to approach contemporary controversies accurately.

Although we rely on physicians, calling on them at birth and death and every medical event in between, rarely do we consider the personal challenges faced by doctors-to-be. In 2005 author Jacqueline Marino and photojournalist Tim Harrison had the unprecedented opportunity to chronicle the experience of three students as they learned to become doctors at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

With Mental Health, Inc., award-winning investigative journalist Art Levine delivers a Shock Doctrine-style exposé of the failures of our out-of-control, profits-driven mental health system, with a special emphasis on the failures of the pharmaceuticals industry, including the treatment of children with antipsychotics and disastrous PTSD protocols for veterans.

Nearly two decades after it closed, the South Carolina State Hospital continues to hold a palpable mystique in Columbia and throughout the state. Founded in 1821 as the South Carolina Lunatic Asylum, it housed, fed, and treated thousands of patients incapable of surviving on their own. The patient population in 1961 eclipsed 6,600, well above its listed capacity of 4,823. By the mid-1990s, the patient population had fallen under 700, and the hospital had become a symbol of captivity, horror, and chaos.

How can you protect yourself against an enemy that you can't see? How can you meet the regulations of a policy you aren't aware of? If you are involved in the medical industry, you know that today's technology often complicates patient-record confidentiality. You also know that regulations meant to protect patient records, like the Health Insurance Portability and Affordability Act (HIPAA), grow more stringent on a daily basis. Yet each day, the cyberthreats that impede your ability to meet those regulatory standards increase.

When Dr. Virgie Bright Ellington became a cancer patient, she faced insurmountable medical bills. That’s when she took her insider industry knowledge and put it to work. In Crush Medical Debt, she shares her secrets to help individuals, families, and veterans protect against America’s number-one cause of bankruptcy—medical debt. Filled with practical and step-by-step strategies, this guide provides the tools you need to stop spending money you don't owe and save yourself from becoming a victim of a predatory health care system.

Kipling A. Jackson, diagnosed five years ago, refuses to let ALS become a death sentence. Jackson takes an in-depth look at the respiratory side of the disease. His wry sense of humor produces a hilarious narrative that will leave the reader feeling inspired. As Jackson shares his personal journey, he discusses why he chose to extend his life with mechanical ventilation and the tracheostomy. His story is an excellent educational tool for everyone who comes in contact with ALS.

Health care professionals and medical staff, are you frustrated because you have Spanish-speaking patients and you can't communicate with them? Well, let me tell you how easy it is to become confident and learn the most common medical questions asked during a visit. In no time and with practice, you will become fluent and you will be able to understand your patients better. With more than 100 questions I put together, you can excel in your Spanish skills and, even better, you can learn while you sleep, at work, or even in your car. Wow, what a bonus!

Dr. Tom Harbin outlines the many reasons medical professionals should pay more attention to the easily-forgotten principles of ethics. This audiobook discusses ethical issues of day-to-day importance, such as prescribing medications, recommending surgery, adopting new procedures, communicating with patients and colleagues, dealing with personal problems such as substance abuse, disruptive behavior, and boundary issues, and managing personal and institutional obstacles to ethics.