|
Worried Sick: A Prescription for Health in an Overtreated America (H. Eugene and Lillian Youngs Lehman) | 
 enlarge | Author: Md, Nortin M. Hadler
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Category: Book
List Price: $28.00
Buy New: $17.44
You Save: $10.56 (38%)
New (28) Used (8) from $16.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 134094
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 392
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.5
Dimensions (in): 9.4 x 6.1 x 1.3
ISBN: 0807831875
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.10973
EAN: 9780807831878
ASIN: 0807831875
Publication Date: June 2, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
At a time when access to health care in the United States is being widely debated, Nortin Hadler argues that an even more important issue is being overlooked. Although necessary health care should be available to all who need it, he says, the current health-care debate assumes that everyone requires massive amounts of expensive care to stay healthy. Hadler urges that before we commit to paying for whatever pharmaceutical companies and the medical establishment tell us we need, American consumers need to adopt an attitude of skepticism and arm themselves with enough information to make some of their own decisions about what care is truly necessary. Each chapter of Worried Sick is an object lesson regarding the uses and abuses of a particular type of treatment, such as mammography, colorectal screening, statin drugs, or coronary stents. For consumers and medical professionals interested in understanding the scientific basis for Hadler's arguments, each topical chapter has an accompanying source chapter in which Hadler discusses the medical literature and studies that inform his critique. According to Hadler, a major stumbling block to rational health-care policy in the United States is contention over the very concept of what constitutes good health. By learning to distinguish good medical advice from persuasive medical marketing, consumers can make better decisions about their personal health and use that wisdom to inform their perspectives on health-policy issues.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 Snake Oil and MD's September 28, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Dr.Hadler book makes an excellent case for re-vamping health care in America as it currently is administered. He first,chapter by chapter,de-bunks most of the health treatments recommended by America's medical fraternity. Using statistics(and an excellent bibliography of suggested follow-up reading),Dr.Hadler points out the fallacies of the most wide-spread medical procedures and their actual lack of significant,statistical results. He makes a compelling argument that the system of surgical procedures and tests support a multi-billion dollar industry that,perhaps,doesn't put patient welfare first and foremost. He applies the same logic and statistical analysis(what there is available) to the non-regulated potients and nostrums constantly being sold through television ads and magazines. His final chapter inludes an excellent plan for a reformed,efficient and patient oriented health care system for the American public. The book is a cogent and critical analysis of health care in this country.
What's Up, Docs? September 26, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
In Worried Sick, Dr. Nortin Hadler contends that many procedures like bypass surgery, stents, angioplasty, colonoscopy, mammography, prostate cancer and cholesterol screening, among others, ultimately do very little for the patient and a lot for the medical and pharmaceutical industry. He claims that the biggest predictor of health is socioeconomic status (SES), and not necessarily any of the indicators flushed out by screenings and diagnosis. He proposes a health insurance scheme based on proven effectiveness of procedures and pharmaceuticals, with medical care incorporating SES questions into the history and diagnosis. His contention is that we have "medicalized" conditions that have always been the bumps and bruises of life, with this medicalization resulting eventually in health insurance coverage and expansion of definitions that captures more people in these conditions and thereby expands the pool of patients.
Hadler has been making these points for some time in other works, and I think it's an important voice in the debate over health costs and medical insurance. Ultimately, Hadler claims that we should be debating not just about the efficiency of delivering health, for some the panacea for reducing its costs, but fundamentally the effectiveness of the care offered and provided. If, as Hadler claims, so many of the procedures, pharmaceuticals and gadgets foisted on the American public do little, nothing or may actually be harmful, why argue about how to better provide them, and instead, debate on whether they should be automatically included in the menu of options for which patients recruited and which insurance plans eventually pay.
My criticism of the book is that it is somewhat densely written, although Hadller's wit, sometimes expressed in sarcasm, probably evolved over time from the frustration of being a lone voice in the wilderness, makes the book more readable. However, a toned-down version could make the arguments moe accesible to the general public and perhaps give the book and its message a greater impact.
 Unfair to patients and doctors September 6, 2008
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
Dr. Hadler's second book on the same subject is an expansion of his diatribe against doctors (including, by extension, himself?). As with the first, he selects data to make his arguments, and omits those which disagree with him. As a consequence, the poor patient is left knowing far less than before starting, despite Hadler's promises to educate everyone. This is not to say that there are no useful points in the book; it is simply that given the unbelievably pompous and arrogant style, it is virtually impossible for one without great medical sophistication to make hide nor hair of it. Finally, his solution to the health care dilemma, to tax everyone 12% and pay only when the treatment satisfies Hadler's criteria of excellence, is sophomoric and useless.
 Great book with a giant hole August 26, 2008
2 out of 7 found this review helpful
What a tragedy! This is a book everyone in America should read, but after covering the major killers and the major scams involved in treating them, the author goes on and on about relatively minor illnesses and waxes extensively, it doesn't matter that he's right, about the disease that is the Capitalist system of expendable workers,drug companies etc., and the age old struggle between labor, management and poverty that makes people sicker than anything else. I agree, but why in God's name did he leave out Cancer, its diagnosis and dubious treatments, the other major killer he doesn't cover in a comparable way, thus doing a disservice to the readers he purports to help?
This flaws the book beyond belief. It could have been a best seller read by the millions who need to read it instead, in all probability, it will remain relegated to a smaller Univ. press readership because the editors didn't have the sense not to publish it until the other important major killer had been covered. That would have made it a supreme piece of muckraking that might help rein in the insatiable monster that is the Health Care industry in this country and maybe the world.
So no thanks to Dr. Hadler for getting so carried away with himself he drops the ball, and no thanks to the editors who let the book out without completing the job.
 Essential ! August 18, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
It's a vicious circle: the medical technology exponential growth needs to be sold, health news (the great majority not exactly exempt) being issued all the time everywhere. At the core, our anguish concerning our frailty - and mortality: we want to live better, and longer. Our limits as human beings (who eventually become sick and die) are irrelevant.
Elaborate laboratorial exams, expensive and unproven procedures are so finding their indications (a lot of them even becoming almost "compulsory"). Scientific articles are reshaped as a official way to reflect these certainties. And who is bold enough to contradict?
Nortin Hadler is one of the rare voices who raise against those established truths.
Relying heavily on sound medical literature (the same literature who - thanks to statistics "miracles" - yields otherwise dangerous conclusions), in a language sometimes excessively technical to lay people (althoug doing his best to clarify it), Hadler, a renowned professor, open our eyes and helps us in our hard decisions about our health, even if they are against the mainstream.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
