Though touted as perhaps the best in the world, the American medical system is filled with hypocrisies. Our health care is staggeringly expensive, yet one in six Americans has no health insurance. We have some of the most skilled physicians in the world, yet one hundred thousand patients die each year from medical errors. In this gripping, eye-opening book, award-winning journalist Shannon Brownlee takes readers inside the hospital to dismantle some of our most venerated myths about American medicine. Using vivid examples of real patients and physicians, Overtreated debunks the idea that most of medicine is based in sound science, and shows how our health care system delivers huge amounts of unnecessary care that is not only expensive and wasteful but can actually imperil the health of patients.
The interests of politicians and the medical-industrial complex continually trump those of patients, seducing the wealthy with unnecessary procedures and leaving the poor with haphazard access to treatment. Backward economic incentives allow patients with chronic conditions to receive ineffective care, and roll after roll of red tape undermines even the best-intentioned doctors. Tens of thousands of patients die each year from overtreatment. American medicine is in desperate need of fixing.
Nevertheless, Overtreated ultimately conveys a message of hope by reframing the debate over health care reform. Americans worry about rationing—that any effort to rein in the high cost of health care will result in limited access to life-saving treatments. Covering the uninsured seems like an insurmountable problem because it will drive up costs even more. Overtreated offers a way to control costs and cover the uninsured, while simultaneously improving the quality of American medicine. Shannon Brownlee’s humane, intelligent, and penetrating analysis empowers readers to avoid the perils of overtreatment, as well as pointing the way to better health care for everyone.
Thirty years ago, Henry Gadsden, the head of Merck, one of the world's largest drug companies, told Fortune magazine that he wanted Merck to be more like chewing gum maker Wrigley's. It had long been his dream to make drugs for healthy people so that Merck could "sell to everyone." Gadsden's dream now drives the marketing machinery of the most profitable industry on earth. Drug companies are systematically working to widen the very boundaries that define illness, and the markets for medication grow ever larger. Mild problems are redefined as serious illness and common complaints are labeled as medical conditions requiring drug treatments. Runny noses are now allergic rhinitis, PMS has become a psychiatric disorder, and hyperactive children have ADD. When it comes to conditions like high cholesterol or low bone density, being "at risk" is sold as a disease. Selling Sickness reveals how widening the boundaries of illness and lowering the threshold for treatments is creating millions of new patients and billions in new profits, in turn threatening to bankrupt health-care systems all over the world. As more and more of ordinary life becomes medicalized, the industry moves ever closer to Gadsden's dream: "selling to everyone."
Product Description: Gain the practical skills you need to competently and confidently calculate drug dosages, even if you dislike math. All it takes is practice - and Calculation of Drug Dosages, 8th Edition gives you the most practice of any drug calculation book available! First, it provides an extensive review of essential math concepts before introducing and clearly explaining the ratio and proportion, formula, and dimensional analysis methods of drug calculation. The book's popular "worktext" format builds on concepts as you go and reinforces what you learn with over 2,000 practice problems in the book and on the accompanying CD-ROM.
An extensive math review reinforces basic math skills that are essential for accurate drug dosage calculation. Once you've identified your strengths and weaknesses on the pretest, it's easy to work toward improving specific competencies.
Chapter worksheets provide ample opportunities to practice solving realistic problems.
Posttests at the end of most chapters help you assess your understanding of chapter content.
Content is organized in a progression from simple to complex, building on prior knowledge and applying it to new material so you retain more of what you've learned.
A Comprehensive Posttest at the end of the book provides additional practice and accurately gauges your understanding of key concepts.
Learning objectives explain what you should have accomplished upon completion of each chapter.
A glossary in the back of the book defines important terms.
An answer key provides step-by-step solutions for practice problems presented in the worksheets and posttests, shown in both the ratio and proportion and formula methods. Answers only are provided for the comprehensive posttest.
Current Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) and Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) recommendations emphasize the importance of avoiding ambiguous abbreviations, acronyms, and symbols that could result in medication errors.
The Safety in Medication Administration chapter helps you reduce the possibility of medical errors or injuries by providing information on specific measures to take to protect your patients.
More than 200 practice problems have been added to this edition for even more practice, bringing the total number of problems to over 2,000.
Additional content on calculating medications for neonates based on weight in grams helps you accurately calculate dosages for low birth weight infants.
A set of 18 tear-out flash cards, perforated in the back of the book, offers a flexible, convenient way to study and memorize abbreviations, formulas, and conversions found in the book.
Updated drug labels and equipment photos throughout the book reflect the latest drugs and technology used in the market.
Prepared by residents and faculty at the Washington University School of Medicine, this pocket manual contains easy-to-read algorithms for the management of more than 80 medical and surgical problems arising in the intensive care unit. Chapters focus on specific problems and the algorithms provide straightforward approaches to the management of these issues. Coverage includes a section on procedures commonly performed in the intensive care unit. Appendices include common equations in the ICU, drug-drug interactions, and common drug dosages and side effects.
Amazon.com: Many Americans have wondered why prescription drugs have become so expensive while advertising for those drugs seems to grow exponentially. Former New England Journal of Medicine Editor Marcia Angell has some answers. The pharmaceutical industry, according to Angell, is fraught with corruption and doing a disservice to customers, the federal government, and to the medical establishment itself. In The Truth About the Drug Companies, Angell explains how a huge portion of the revenue generated by "Big Pharma" goes not into research and development but into aggressive marketing campaigns to sell their product. She describes how, even though the drug companies claim that it costs them an average of 802 million dollars per drug to develop new medicines, that figure is obscenely inflated since it factors in marketing as well as expected interest the company would have received had they invested the money in the open market. Meanwhile, Angell says, most of the R & D work is done by colleges and universities funded by the government. There are also problems with the drugs themselves, Angell indicates, since a majority are "me-too drugs", slightly modified versions of existing products which meant to address concerns of consumers most likely to spend money on pharmaceuticals. Thus, the market is filled with remarkably similar drugs to treat depression and high cholesterol while potentially life-saving medicines for diseases afflicting third-world countries are discontinued because they aren't profitable. In the books most damning passage, Angell tells of the high-priced junkets offered to doctors, ostensibly offered as educational opportunities that seem to constitute little more than bribes. The prognosis for reform is a grim one, Angell indicates, due to the massive cash reserves and lobbying efforts of "Big Pharma." Indeed, that lobby was hard at work trying to discredit her claims immediately upon the book's publication. But for anyone who's paid a pharmacy bill, The Truth About the Drug Companies is a fascinating read. --John Moe
Product Description: During her two decades at TheNew England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Marcia Angell had a front-row seat on the appalling spectacle of the pharmaceutical industry. She watched drug companies stray from their original mission of discovering and manufacturing useful drugs and instead become vast marketing machines with unprecedented control over their own fortunes. She saw them gain nearly limitless influence over medical research, education, and how doctors do their jobs. She sympathized as the American public, particularly the elderly, struggled and increasingly failed to meet spiraling prescription drug prices. Now, in this bold, hard-hitting new book, Dr. Angell exposes the shocking truth of what the pharmaceutical industry has become–and argues for essential, long-overdue change.
Currently Americans spend a staggering $200 billion each year on prescription drugs. As Dr. Angell powerfully demonstrates, claims that high drug prices are necessary to fund research and development are unfounded: The truth is that drug companies funnel the bulk of their resources into the marketing of products of dubious benefit. Meanwhile, as profits soar, the companies brazenly use their wealth and power to push their agenda through Congress, the FDA, and academic medical centers.
Zeroing in on hugely successful drugs like AZT (the first drug to treat HIV/AIDS), Taxol (the best-selling cancer drug in history), and the blockbuster allergy drug Claritin, Dr. Angell demonstrates exactly how new products are brought to market. Drug companies, she shows, routinely rely on publicly funded institutions for their basic research; they rig clinical trials to make their products look better than they are; and they use their legions of lawyers to stretch out government-granted exclusive marketing rights for years. They also flood the market with copycat drugs that cost a lot more than the drugs they mimic but are no more effective.
The American pharmaceutical industry needs to be saved, mainly from itself, and Dr. Angell proposes a program of vital reforms, which includes restoring impartiality to clinical research and severing the ties between drug companies and medical education. Written with fierce passion and substantiated with in-depth research, The Truth About the Drug Companies is a searing indictment of an industry that has spun out of control.
Book Description: With devastating reports coming out about synthetic hormones, Dr. C.W. Randolph, Jr. was urged to write From Hormone Hell to Hormone Well . This book helps women around the world understand how their bodies can be treated effectively by using human-identical natural hormones - the safe way to a healthy life as the body changes.
The book is written for women suffering from the symptoms associated with PMS, perimenopause, menopause, or hysterectomy. With more than 38,000,000 women now hitting the perimenopause or menopausal years, it's important to know that there are safe options for their health. Dr. Randollph also provides insight into a woman's reproductive health as well as male menopause.
The book offers safe and effective treatments for the following: weight gain, depression, osteoporosis, mood swings, premature aging, breast health, hot flashes, low sex drive, fluid retention, and fatigue.
Proving that sometimes less is more, this super-concise guide includes more than one thousand commonly used medications along with essential data on their selection and administration. Organized alphabetically by generic drug name, CPDR covers common use, mechanisms of action, dosage, cautions, contraindications, dosing information, and side effects.
Product Description: Winner of the 2006 AMWA Book Awards Physicians Category, An Introduction to Clinical Emergency Medicine is a much-needed resource for individuals practicing in this challenging field. It takes a novel approach, describing in detail the best and most current methods including initial patient evaluation, generation of differential diagnoses, problem-solving and management of challenging conditions based on presenting symptoms. Unlike other textbooks, in which the diagnosis is known, this textbook approaches clinical problems as clinicians approach patients - without full knowledge of the final diagnosis. It provides an understanding of how to approach patients with undifferentiated conditions, ask the right questions, gather historical data, utilize physical examination skills and order and interpret laboratory and radiographic tests. It provides current management and disposition strategies with controversies presented, including pearls and summary points for each topic covered. The book is multi-author, each contributor chosen because of a track record in teaching as well as being internationally recognised experts in the specialty.
Book Description: An Introduction to Clinical Emergency Medicine is a newly-conceived textbook, focusing on the skills necessary to provide emergency care, aimed primarily at medical students. Emergency health care professionals, such as technicians, prehospital care providers, physician assistants, nurses and nurse practitioners will find this book stimulating and tremendously valuable as well.
Product Description: The Merck Index is a one-volume encyclopedia of chemicals, drugs and biologicals that contains more than 10,000 monographs. Each monograph in this authoritative reference source is a concise description of a single substance or a small group of closely related compounds.
Compounds included:
• human and veterinary drugs
• biotech drugs and monoclonal antibodies
• substances used for medical imaging
• biologicals and natural products
• plants and traditional medicines
• nutraceuticals and cosmeceuticals
• agriculturals, pesticides and herbicides
• Organic chemicals used in research
• Food additives and supplements
• dyes, colors and indicators
• environmentally significant substances
Information provided:
• chemical, common and generic names
• Over 15,000 trademarks and associated companies
• CAS Registry Numbers for over 12,000 compounds
• Over 8,500 chemical structures
• molecular formulae, weights and percentage composition
• capsule statements identifying compound classes and scientific significance
• scientific and patent literature references
• physical and toxicity data
• therapeutic and commercial uses
• caution and hazard information
In addition, there are more than 700 new and completely revised monographs, thousands of new references, trademarks and uses added to existing monographs. Now includes a companion CD-ROM which features 989 monographs no longer available in print, organic name reactions, supplemental tables and a new user interface for user-friendly searching.
Features of the CD:
Searchable by keywords, references, and numerical properties
Search the complete contents of the 14th edition, plus nearly a thousand monographs archived from previous editions
Comes with a free one-year subscription to the Merck Index Internet Edition
Windows-compatible CD powered by CambridgeSoft's ChemFinder
Extensively revised supplemental tables now including acronyms, vaccines, and physical constants
More than 70 pages of hard to find information in one easy-to-use place
