Doctor Always On Call


Book Description

Robert Morris II recorded eight hours of interviews with his father, Robert Morris, MD (1904-1990), from which he drafted an autobiography and presented it to his dad on his 85th birthday. Until Dr. Morris’ death 15 months later, they collaborated to correct and add to the original memories. Dr. Morris’ career was unique in several ways: He dropped out of medical school twice, returning to farming, then vowed that he’d become a doctor or die. The third time in medical school, he led his class most quarters. Marrying and nurse and settling in the village of Medina (pop. 400) in 1935, his practice and reputation—especially as a diagnostician—grew until his death. He made home visits extending to five counties, the last doctor to do so in this area, delivering some 2000 babies in the home, while also serving in four hospitals. He was a devout Christian and lay leader in his church. Two of his daughters married doctors, two others became career teachers who also married teachers, and his son had a varied career, ending as a writer. Dr. Morris tells both painful and humorous stories about his life.




One Doctor


Book Description

"A first-person narrative that takes readers inside the medical profession as one doctor solves real-life medical mysteries"--Provided by publisher.




Doctor on Call: Chernobyl Responder, Jewish Refugee, Radiation Expert


Book Description

Dr. Alla Shapiro was a first responder to the worst nuclear disaster in history -- the explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station in Ukraine on April 26, 1986. First responders were NOT given detailed instructions or protective clothing. Amid an eerie and pervasive silence, Dr. Shapiro treated traumatized children and witnessed frightened families and civilians running barefoot across radioactive grounds and carrying stretchers to save others. First responders triaged and administered first aid, extinguished fires and cleaned up radioactive debris. No protocols were in place since no one considered the possibility of a nuclear accident. From the outset of the disaster the Soviet government worsen matters by spreading misinformation. First-responders were ordered to be part of the deception of the public. This bureaucratic cover-up during angered and disheartened Dr. Shapiro. This painful experience along with the decades of persistent professional and personal discrimination and hostility that she and her family, as Jewish citizens of the USSR, endured, led her and her family like thousands of others to leave and flee the oppressive Soviet Union in the late 1980s. As Émigrés they were restricted to taking possessions weighing no more than 40 pounds and $90 in cash. Their escape route took them first to Vienna and then on to Italy for six months. By then four generations of Dr. Shapiro's family were among these "stateless" people. Chernobyl changed Dr. Shapiro's life and career forever. Arriving in the U.S., like all immigrants she had to learn a new language, encountered red tape validating her diplomas, and find housing for her family When U.S. authorities failed to fully validate her medical diplomas, she re-enrolled in medical school at Georgetown University and restarted her career and new life in America. Spurred on by her Chernobyl experiences, she rose to become one of the world's leading expert's in medical countermeasures against radiation exposure. For thirty years she worked for the FDA on disaster readiness and preparation-and has a much to say about America's readiness or lack of readiness for the current pandemic affecting the United States and the world.




On Call


Book Description

On Call begins with a newly-minted doctor checking in for her first day of residency--wearing the long white coat of an MD and being called "Doctor" for the first time. Having studied at Yale and Dartmouth, Dr. Emily Transue arrives in Seattle to start her internship in Internal Medicine just after graduating from medical school. This series of loosely interconnected scenes from the author's medical training concludes her residency three years later. During her first week as a student on the medical wards, Dr. Transue watched someone come into the emergency room in cardiac arrest and die. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before-it was a long way from books and labs. So she began to record her experiences as she gained confidence putting her book knowledge to work. The stories focus on the patients Dr. Transue encountered in the hospital, ER and clinic; some are funny and others tragic. They range in scope from brief interactions in the clinic to prolonged relationships during hospitalization. There is a man newly diagnosed with lung cancer who is lyrical about his life on a sunny island far away, and a woman, just released from a breathing machine after nearly dying, who sits up and demands a cup of coffee. Though the book has a great deal of medical content, the focus is more on the stories of the patients' lives and illnesses and the relationships that developed between the patients and the author, and the way both parties grew in the course of these experiences. Along the way, the book describes the life of a resident physician and reflects on the way the medical system treats both its patients and doctors. On Call provides a window into the experience of patients at critical junctures in life and into the author's own experience as a new member of the medical profession.




They Call Me "Doctor Death"


Book Description

Too often we view death as an enemy to be denied, fought, and defeated, rather than as an inevitable and natural part of life. The medical establishment routinely buys into this view, promoting aggressive treatments by overselling technology and hope, which only prolong needless suffering for terminal patients and their families. But as this candid book shows, we don’t have to go down that path. As a long-time palliative and hospice care physician, Dr. Ken Pettit talks openly about a subject few of us want to discuss. His focus is not on prolonging life, but on helping terminal patients die “a good death,” with the best possible quality of life up to the end. Based on his work with hundreds of patients and families, as well as the life-altering experience of watching family and friends face death, Dr. Pettit illuminates, in the vivid detail that only an insider can provide, the failings of our medical establishment. He empowers us to ask questions, challenge assumptions, and prepare, with pro-active clarity, for our final days. This book will help all of us—patients, families, and medical professionals—break our collective silence about death, so we can develop better ways of discussing, treating, and encountering what we will all someday face.




Smart Health Choices


Book Description

Every day we make decisions about our health - some big and some small. What we eat, how we live and even where we live can affect our health. But how can we be sure that the advice we are given about these important matters is right for us? This book will provide you with the right tools for assessing health advice.




Managing Your Doctor


Book Description

Getting effective, error free affordable healthcare is challenging. Managing Your Doctor is here to help. An information overload no doctor can keep up with; endless manipulations by drug and medical device companies; a take over by profit seeking corporations; laws that disadvantage the patient; an epidemic of medical and billing errors combine with the ever increasing complexity of medicine all contribute to the problem. The antidote is the right information - which this book provides, divided into sections on getting the right doctor; diagnosis; information; treatment; price; future; even the right death (as terminal care is notoriously badly handled) and advice on a home medical kit.




Nightwork


Book Description

#1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts introduces an unforgettable thief in an unputdownable new novel... Greed. Desire. Obsession. Revenge . . . It’s all in a night’s work. Harry Booth started stealing at nine to keep a roof over his ailing mother’s head, slipping into luxurious, empty homes at night to find items he could trade for precious cash. When his mother finally succumbed to cancer, he left Chicago—but kept up his nightwork, developing into a master thief with a code of honor and an expertise in not attracting attention—or getting attached. Until he meets Miranda Emerson, and the powerful bond between them upends all his rules. But along the way, Booth has made some dangerous associations, including the ruthless Carter LaPorte, who sees Booth as a tool he controls for his own profit. Knowing LaPorte will leverage any personal connection, Booth abandons Miranda for her own safety—cruelly, with no explanation—and disappears. But the bond between Miranda and Booth is too strong, pulling them inexorably back together. Now Booth must face LaPorte, to truly free himself and Miranda once and for all.




Taking Action Against Clinician Burnout


Book Description

Patient-centered, high-quality health care relies on the well-being, health, and safety of health care clinicians. However, alarmingly high rates of clinician burnout in the United States are detrimental to the quality of care being provided, harmful to individuals in the workforce, and costly. It is important to take a systemic approach to address burnout that focuses on the structure, organization, and culture of health care. Taking Action Against Clinician Burnout: A Systems Approach to Professional Well-Being builds upon two groundbreaking reports from the past twenty years, To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System and Crossing the Quality Chasm: A New Health System for the 21st Century, which both called attention to the issues around patient safety and quality of care. This report explores the extent, consequences, and contributing factors of clinician burnout and provides a framework for a systems approach to clinician burnout and professional well-being, a research agenda to advance clinician well-being, and recommendations for the field.




The Anatomy of a Calling


Book Description

In The Anatomy of a Calling, Lissa Rankin, MD, makes a simple yet revolutionary claim: We are all, every single one of us, heroes. We are all on what Joseph Campbell calls "a hero's journey;" we are all on a mission to step into our true nature and fulfill the assignment our souls were sent to Earth to fulfill. Navigating the hero's journey, Dr. Rankin argues, is one of the cornerstones of living a meaningful, authentic, healthy life. In clear, engaging prose, Dr. Rankin describes her entire spiritual journey for the first time--beginning with what she calls her "perfect storm" of events--and recounts the many transformative experiences that led to a profound awakening of her soul. Through her father's death, her daughter's birth, career victories and failures, and an ongoing struggle to identify as both a doctor and a healer, Dr. Rankin discovers a powerful self-awareness. As she shares her story, she encourages you to find out where you are on your own journey and offers wisdom and inspiration in the form of "Hero's Guideposts" along the way. Dr. Rankin weaves in lessons on trusting intuition, surrendering to love, and learning to see adversity as an opportunity for soul growth. Much more than a memoir, The Anatomy of a Calling guides you to make a powerful shift in consciousness and reach your highest destiny.