Medical Medicine

Over millions of years, male and female bodies developed crucial physiological differences to improve the chances for human survival. These differences have become culturally obsolete with the overturning of traditional gender roles. But they are nevertheless very real, and they go well beyond the obvious sexual and reproductive variances: Men and women differ in terms of digestion, which affects the way medications are absorbed. Sensitivity to pain is dependent on gender.

Christine Montross was a nervous first-year medical student, standing outside the anatomy lab on her first day of class, preparing herself for what was to come. Entering a room with stainless-steel tables topped by corpses in body bags is shocking, no matter how long you've prepared yourself, but a strange thing happened when Montross met her cadaver.

Are you struggling with health problems like inflammation, anxiety, or allergies that just won’t go away? Are you constantly feeling exhausted? Or, do you just have an overall sense of not feeling your best? Unfortunately, almost everyone suffers from these conditions at some point in their lives. You might have put your medicine cabinets full of prescription medications and synthetic drugs to heal some of your problems.

It can be debilitating suffering from chronic pain or illness, especially when the treatments given are ineffective or even harmful. Often, pain sufferers are prescribed opioids to manage their symptoms, but is this the best option available? According to the American Psychiatric Association, about two million people in the US alone have a substance use disorder linked to prescription opioids. What if there was a way to treat your symptoms without the nasty side effects of prescription drugs or the risk of opioid addiction?

Four decades after And the Band Played On created an image of the AIDS epidemic that has survived in the public consciousness to this very day, mathematician Rebecca Culshaw is sounding the alarm that everything that iconic book told us about AIDS is demonstrably wrong. And that mistaken understanding of AIDS and its cause has the potential to affect all of us, not just certain so-called risk groups. Rebecca Culshaw describes her slow uncovering of these reasons over her years researching HIV for her work constructing mathematical models of its interaction with the immune system.

“An essential book for our times, full of wisdom, compassion and sound advice. Every patient needs a copy of this gem.” –Katherine May, author of Wintering and Enchantment A gentle, expert guide to the secrets of recovery, showing why we need it and how to do it better For many of us...

In this volume, essential ideas from the work of Deepak Chopra, M.D., are arranged to create a transcendent experience for the reader, a journey into healing. Along the path, we discover that what we think and feel can actually change our biology. We learn to go beyond self-imposed...

How a miracle treatment turned deadly and changed the course of the AIDS crisis. By the mid 1980s, AIDS hysteria was so rampant that a fearful and prejudiced public ignored stories of gay men falling ill with lesions and mouth ulcers. President Reagan avoided mentioning the disease entirely...

With a focus on herbal medicine and first-aid essentials, former Green Beret medic and clinical herbalist Sam Coffman presents this comprehensive home reference on medical emergency preparedness for times when professional medical care is unavailable. Herbal Medic covers first-aid essentials, such how to assess a situation and a person in need of treatment and distinguish between illness and injury, as well as how to prepare and use herbs when there is no access to conventional medical treatment. In addition, the book provides a basic introduction to herbal medicine.

A thrilling tale of encounters with nature’s masters of biochemistry In Venomous, the molecular biologist Christie Wilcox investigates venoms and the animals that use them, revealing how they work, what they do to the human body, and how they can revolutionize biochemistry and medicine today...

Widely known today as the "Angel of the Battlefield", Clara Barton's personal life has always been shrouded in mystery. In Clara Barton, Professional Angel, Elizabeth Brown Pryor presents a biography of Barton that strips away the heroic exterior and reveals a complex and often trying woman. Based on the papers Clara Barton carefully saved over her lifetime, this biography is the first one to draw on these recorded thoughts. Not always altruistic, her accomplishments were nonetheless extraordinary.

“Nuila’s storytelling gifts place him alongside colleagues like Atul Gawande.” —Los Angeles Times This “compelling mixture of health care policy and gripping stories from the frontlines of medicine” (The Guardian) explores the question: where does an uninsured person go when turned...

The uplifting, adventure-filled memoir of one groundbreaking scientist’s quest to develop new ways to fight illness and disease through the healing powers of plants. “A fascinating and deeply personal journey.” ­—Amy Stewart, author of Wicked Plants and The Drunken Botanist Traveling by...

From machine learning to virtual surgery practice, this exploration of scientific inquiry celebrates the greatest developments to date in medical artificial intelligence. Get to know the physicians, scientists, and other researchers responsible for these breakthroughs in medicine, and explore the ups, the downs, and the eureka moments that are science in action.

As women's rights are increasingly under attack, journalist Rebecca Kelliher dives into the gripping history of abortion pills, weaving together the many people who, across decades and continents, have sought to ensure access to these medications Spanning more than a century and several...

As much as we all might wish that mental health problems, with their elusive causes and unsettling behaviors, simply did not exist, millions of people suffer from them, sometimes to an extreme extent. Many others face addiction to alcohol and other drugs, as overdose and suicide deaths abound. Yet the vast majority of doctors receive minimal instruction in treating these conditions during their lengthy medical training.

When pharmaceutical scientist David R. Hamilton, PhD observed the results of tests on new drugs, he noticed that patients receiving the control placebo pills reported the same level of improvement as people receiving the actual drug. Seeing this result repeat itself time and time again, he...

A renowned medical intuitive shows how problems—even catastrophes—in your life or your health can chart a path to profound healing and transformation. Ten years ago, Dr. Mona Lisa Schulz died on the operating table. The surgeons who had been working to correct a spine deformity were suddenly...

In the tradition of The Emperor of All Maladies and The Noonday Demon, a moving, eye-opening exploration of PTSD Just as polio loomed over the 1950s, and AIDS stalked the 1980s and ’90s, posttraumatic stress disorder haunts us in the early years of the twenty-first century. Over a decade...

An illuminating, hilarious, and practical guide to 99 of the most terrifying ways to die and how to avoid them from an emergency medicine doctor. Dr. Ashely Alker is a self-described death escapologist—or, in more familiar terms, an emergency medicine doctor. She has seen it all, from...