Medical Industry

In January 1918, as World War I raged on, a new and terrifying virus began to spread across the globe. In three successive waves, from 1918 to 1919, influenza killed more than 50 million people. German soldiers termed it Blitzkatarrh, British soldiers referred to it as Flanders Grippe, but worldwide, the pandemic gained the notorious title of “Spanish flu”. Nowhere on earth escaped: the United States recorded 550,000 deaths (five times its total military fatalities in the war) while European deaths totaled more than two million.

The acclaimed author of Carved in Sand - a veteran investigative journalist who endured persistent back pain for decades - delivers the definitive book on the subject: an essential examination of all facets of the back pain industry, exploring what works, what doesn't, what may cause harm, and how to get on the road to recovery. In her effort to manage her chronic back pain, investigative reporter Cathryn Jakobson Ramin spent years and a small fortune on a panoply of treatments.

Pandemics have afflicted human civilizations throughout history, yet these health crises have also led to progress in medicine and society that improved people’s lives. History shows that scientific innovation often proceeds from the collaboration of researchers across disciplines, nations, and institutions.

Despite modern medicine's infatuation with high-tech gadgetry, the single most powerful diagnostic tool is the doctor-patient conversation, which can uncover the lion's share of illnesses. However, what patients say and what doctors hear are often two vastly different things. Patients, anxious to convey their symptoms, feel an urgency to "make their case" to their doctors. Doctors, under pressure to be efficient, multitask while patients speak and often miss the key elements.

From the co-author of Patients at Risk: The Rise of the Nurse Practitioner and Physician Assistant in Healthcare, the first book to warn of the systematic replacement of physicians, comes Imposter Doctors, an even more frightening exposé of patient endangerment at the hands of for-profit corporate entities and healthcare conglomerates.

From the 15th to the mid-19th centuries, scurvy caused more deaths at sea than storms, shipwrecks, combat, and all other diseases combined. The cure for scurvy ranks among the greatest of military successes, yet its impact on history has mostly been ignored. In this book, Stephen R. Brown delivers a lively recounting of how three determined individuals overcame the constraints of 18th century thinking to solve the greatest medical mystery of their era. Brimming with tales of ships, sailors, and bureaucracy, Brown presents a vivid picture of life aboard the ship during the age of sail.

Galen of Pergamum (A.D. 129-ca. 216) began his remarkable career tending to wounded gladiators in provincial Asia Minor. Later in life he achieved great distinction as one of a small circle of court physicians to the family of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, at the very heart of Roman society. Susan Mattern's The Prince of Medicine offers the first authoritative biography in English of this brilliant, audacious, and profoundly influential figure.

It is 1919 and Elizabeth Hughes, the 11-year-old daughter of America's most-distinguished jurist and politician, Charles Evans Hughes, has been diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. It is essentially a death sentence. The only accepted form of treatment - starvation - whittles her down to 45 pounds, skin and bones. Miles away, Canadian researchers Frederick Banting and Charles Best manage to identify and purify insulin from animal pancreases - a miracle soon marred by scientific jealousy, intense business competition, and fistfights.

People from all walks of life call 911 when things go bad. These are their stories, told by the people who respond and make things better. First responders often don't tell stories, preferring to keep what happens at work private. Rescue Captain Michael Morse changes that with these heartfelt descriptions of hundreds of emergency calls, with the usual coverings peeled back, exposing the bizarre, heartbreaking, and often hilarious reactions to 911 emergencies.

This easy-to-use study guide offers comprehensive insight into the critical principles of pharmacology, putting the power of understanding at your fingertips. This top-notch resource dives deep into highly informative topics and provides readers with the essential details needed to understand complex concepts.

Human history hinges on the battle to confront our most dangerous enemies—the half-dozen diseases responsible for killing almost all of mankind. The story of our medical triumphs reveals an inspiring tapestry of human achievement, but the journey was far from smooth. It is a tale replete with dramatic episodes as spellbinding as any blockbuster Hollywood movie. In The Masters of Medicine, Dr. Andrew Lam, an award-winning author and retinal surgeon, distills the long arc of medical progress down to the crucial moments that were responsible for the world's greatest medical miracles.

Weaving together family history, genetic discovery, and scenes from her life, Ami McKay tells the compelling, true-science story of her own family's unsettling legacy of hereditary cancer while exploring the challenges that come from carrying the mutation that not only killed many people you loved, but might also kill you.

Written by experienced professors and professionally narrated for easy listening, this crash course is a valuable tool both during school and when preparing for an exam, or if you’re simply interested in the subject of Sleep Medicine. The audio is focused and high-yield, covering the most important topics you might expect to learn in a typical medical school Sleep Medicine course. Included are both capsule and detailed explanations of critical issues and topics you must know to master Sleep Medicine. The material is accurate, up to date, and broken down into bite-sized sections.

Written by experienced professors and professionally narrated for easy listening, this crash course is a valuable tool both during school and when preparing for the USMLE, or if you’re simply interested in the subject of Sports Physiology. The audio is focused and high-yield, covering the most important topics you might expect to learn in a typical Medical school Sports Physiology course. Included are both capsule and detailed explanations of critical issues and topics you must know to master Sports Physiology.

Written by experts and authorities in the field and professionally narrated for easy listening, this crash course is a valuable tool both during school and when preparing for the USMLE, or if you’re simply interested in the subject of sports nutrition. The audio is focused and high-yield, covering the most important topics you might expect to learn in a typical Medical school Sports Nutrition course. Included are both capsule and detailed explanations of critical issues and topics you must know to master sports nutrition.

This is the spellbinding tale of a mysterious doctor who revolutionized neonatal care more than 100 years ago and saved some 7,000 babies. Dr. Martin Couney's story is a kaleidoscopic ride through the intersection of ebullient entrepreneurship, enlightened pediatric care, and the wild culture of world's fairs at the beginning of the American Century.

San Francisco's Laguna Honda Hospital is the last almshouse in the country, a descendant of the Hôtel-Dieu (God's hotel) that cared for the sick in the Middle Ages. Ballet dancers and rock musicians, professors and thieves - "anyone who had fallen, or, often, leapt, onto hard times" and needed extended medical care - ended up here. So did Victoria Sweet, who came for two months and stayed for 20 years. Laguna Honda, lower-tech but human-paced, gave Sweet the opportunity to practice a kind of attentive medicine that has almost vanished.

Written by experts and authorities in the field and professionally narrated by Dr. Cathy Simpson, this crash course is a valuable tool both during school and when preparing for the USMLE, or if you're simply interested in gynecology. The audio is focused and high-yield, covering the most important topics you might expect to learn in a typical medical school gynecology course. Included are both capsule and detailed explanations of critical issues and topics you must know to master gynecology. The material is accurate, up-to-date, and broken down into bite-sized sections.

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.

Now published in five languages, Strange Medicine casts a gimlet eye on the practice of medicine through the ages that highlights the most dubious ideas, bizarre treatments, and biggest blunders. From bad science and oafish behavior to stomach-turning procedures that hurt more than helped, Strange Medicine presents strange but true facts and an honor roll of doctors, scientists, and dreamers who inadvertently turned the clock of medicine backward.