Reddit mentions: The best medical administration & economics books

hey buddy.

Health Care Handbook by Elizabeth Askin & Nathan Moore. I read it when applying in 2013 and at the time it was a free pdf. Now it's a book but I remember reading like 20 pages every morning in bed and it was like a kid's book. So easily digestible. I was accepted to USC (Los Angeles), Tulane and Miami and all interviewers said I was very well versed in Obamacare. Also, google "Redditor explains obamacare" by /u/CaspianX ...I read that everyday for a month and it melted into my memory, didn't even have to actively memorize. And it was...dare I say...even enjoyable to read haha.

I haven't read the other one's posted here but they may be just what you're looking for too!

Amazon link (can get digital and have it in 2 seconds!): http://www.amazon.com/Health-Care-Handbook-Elisabeth-Askin-ebook/dp/B0088CMAUU

Review of the book: http://healthcarehandbook.wustl.edu/

good luck and please PM for any help with the admissions process. I answer loads of PMs every week and have been since this time last year. I received help from a friend a year above me and feel the need to pay it forward!

)

If she's pretty healthy, it's ultimately up to momma. VBAC is generally a lot safer and better for mom and baby than repeat cesareans. If she wants to attempt trial of labor, she needs to find an OB or midwife that will support her decision. Sometimes the Dr might say they don't recommend a vbac, but the Dr has a high cesarean rate. Most times when Dr's recommend cesareans, it's out of convenience (for the Dr) and fear of litigation, not what's best for mom and baby. Look up hospitals' cesarean rates in your area. Meet with different doctors/midwives until you find the one the supports your decisions and won't "bait and switch." Do your research and ask questions. Lots and lots of questions. Houston, TX has the largest medical center in the world and there's only one hospital that will allow vbacs after 2+ cesareans, and even though vbac is proven to be safer, Houston still has a high cesarean rate (33%), but also the highest maternal mortality rate in the country🤦🏽‍. So depending on your area, it may be hard (or easy) to find a hospital that will allow mom to attempt a vbac. A cesarean should never be an elective option and should only be reserved for emergencies. It's a major abdominal surgery that takes 6wks to heal from. The "postpartum period" is generally 6wks as well (as far as maternity leave goes, but postpartum can be as long as 2yrs). Do your research and make your own informed decisions, and find a Dr/midwife that supports your decisions. You have a choice in EVERYTHING when it comes to the birth of your child. Here are some links for more info and a few good books on the U.S. maternity system and the industrialization of birth. Also, finding a doula would be beneficial as well. Look up evidence based birth, and maternity care.

Source: I'm a doula, and have doula'd for multiple successful vbacs

https://vbacfacts.com
https://m.acog.org/Patients/FAQs/Vaginal-Birth-After-Cesarean-Delivery
https://www.amazon.com/Pushed-Painful-Childbirth-Modern-Maternity/dp/0738211664
https://www.amazon.com/Born-USA-Broken-Maternity-Children/dp/0520256336
https://www.amazon.com/Farmer-Obstetrician-Michel-Odent/dp/1853432040

I think things have to change with malpractice insurance. It has to. We are losing MDs doing births at all because of this. Our cesarean rate is also rising - we are losing any resemblance to natural birth in the hospital. In fact, I hear the word "natural birth" to mean "vaginal birth".

Doctors are given lower malpractice premiums when they have higher cesarean rates. This is not acceptable!

We used to be shocked at Brazil's 95% cesarean rate. I think we're well on our way. In my community, 40% of first time moms have cesareans.

I hope that we can find inroads that are free from malpractice protocols that allow docs to collaborate with midwives for teaching, safety, and general empowerment of women. I see other countries doing it, but unfortunately, our healthcare and malpractice system does little to help this goal of mine. :(

Our maternal and infant mortality rates are dismal. And it's not because we're using less technology or interventions. It's because we're using more. I really recommend a book called Expecting Trouble: The Myth of Prenatal Care in America by Thomas Strong, MD. He's a third generation MD, second gen OB and he has some amazing insights. Mainly, leave high risk and surgical birth to OBs, turn all other care over to midwives for better outcomes...and look at technology more judiciously.

Other books I recommend are:

Born in the USA: How a Broken Maternity System Must Be Fixed to Put Women and Children First by Marsden Wagner, MD

Pushed: The Painful Truth About Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care by Jennifer Block

Birth: The Surprising History of How We Are Born by Tina Cassidy

Lying In: A History of Childbirth in America

Above all, I wish that more providers would see that the motherbaby is one unit. They are not antagonists towards each other. Less intervention is better and if we could move towards more evidence-based practices we might see better outcomes.

Again, it all boils down to allowing doctors to practice freely. We have to see malpractice reform.

Since you're not in a communication disorders program, it will be hard for you to find any opportunities to observe SLPs providing treatment - unless you know somebody who can help arrange it for you. Most people are in a similar situation as you when they begin their training and, based on the survey's we have, they complete their training and are satisfied with their job choice (even though while reading this subreddit you might think no one is happy being an SLP).

There are a number of different career paths you can take as an SLP but, overall, it is worth remembering that the disabilities we are in charge of diagnosing and treating are amongst the most complex human behaviors (much more so than what other rehab professionals are faced with). As a consequence, the job is intellectually demanding. If you are the type of person who wants to engage in a lifelong path of learning and enjoys such challenges then that's one indicator that you will like the job. The more you know in this profession the more interesting and satisfying it becomes but, realistically, it takes years to develop the kind of knowledge where the job becomes truly creative. Until then, we work to keep our head above water...

You might try purchasing a intro text to communication disorders. This will give you a broad overview of the types of work SLPs do. Here's one example of a text https://www.amazon.com/INTRO-Guide-Communication-Sciences-Disorders/dp/1597565423/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1537463622&sr=8-1&keywords=robb+intro+to+communication+disorders

It's not actually fiction, but it reads like it (i.e. written in a narrative style). If you're at all interested in the goings-on of an abortion clinic, Peter Korn's Lovejoy: A Year in the Life of an Abortion Clinic is really good.

In the same vein, I find that memoirs read very much like fiction, so I really enjoyed Susan Wicklund's This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor and Willie Parker's Life's Work: A Moral Argument for Choice.

I also read The Mothers by Brit Bennett and found it a pleasant read, although it didn't leave a major lasting impression.

Red Clocks by Leni Zumas, on the other hand, does still stick with me- a really haunting imagined not-so-distant future where abortion has been made illegal (not quite as dystopian as The Handmaid's Tale).

Gabriel Weston's Dirty Work is ostensibly pro-choice, I think, but kind of challenging. I didn't love it, but I don't regret having read it, and it is an interesting book simply for having been written by a surgeon.

I can confidently say to stay away from The Fourth Procedure: A Novel of Medical Suspense by Stanley Pottinger- ended up feeling like a very pointless read.

When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi

Being Mortal - Atul Gawande

Better - Atul Gawande

Honestly anything by Atul Gawande

Start With Why- Simon Sinek (Just finished this one today. Phenomenal read. Not medicine related, but a great perspective on what leadership means and how you can inspire those around you)

The White Coat Investor - James Dahle (Financial literacy is always a good thing)

​

I have quite a bit more book suggestions if you're ever curious, but those should keep you busy for a while. Feel free to DM me if you want more!

http://www.amazon.com/Pretty-Modern-Beauty-Plastic-Surgery/dp/0822348012 - Less about medicine, more of an ethanography, there was a huge brazilian population where I used to live.

>http://www.amazon.com/Improvising-Medicine-Oncology-Emerging-Epidemic/dp/0822353423 - your call, I've read others that are similar in the past (dark african hospitals, mom was a doctor, it came up) but this is apparently more popular now. 10 years ago it was the horror of aids, those books are almost unreadable, if it were any other subject you'd simply have trouble suspending disbelief. http://www.amazon.com/The-Paradox-Hope-Journeys-Borderland/dp/0520267354 is another similar book.

http://www.amazon.com/Tales-Shamans-Apprentice-Ethnobotanist-Medicines/dp/0670831379 - Is probably better if you don't want all the doom/gloom view of african medicine.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10235.Mountains_Beyond_Mountains - Figure you've read this, it's highly recommended and extremely popular now, part of the whole 're-imagining medicine' movement.

>http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/161121.My_Own_Country - Speaking of my mom, she was a doctor near here, it's definitely a different world.

http://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Mistook-His-Wife/dp/0684853949 - Read it because of the neuroscience aspect, but I suppose you could consider it a very specialized ethanography of sorts.

Honestly the most popular nowadays is probably the one about the Hmong girl in my first post. I'd recommend it more because I've known a few Hmong and the cultural differences are fascinating.

This has been asked recently, so I'd recommend browsing the archives, but...

There are a ton of UX-focused books out there that focus on different areas. If you have an area you're trying to grow your skills in, let us know. There maybe better or worse books for that.

• If Disney Ran Your Hospital — I love this book because it's about user experience, but has nothing to do with websites or apps (which is pretty much all we think about when we say UX anymore). This really opens the world of UX to everything that the user experiences, from how they hear about your service, find it, consume it and remember it.
  
  
• The Essential Persona Lifecycle — This book helps you understand how to research your customers and users, which, at the end of the day, are the only thing that matters in true UCD. If toy can get buy-in for personas at your organization, the whole UX world opens up.
  
  
• The Anatomy of Type — This gets a little design heavy, but words, labels, and copy are so important to good usability, that understanding type at a deeper level is a must for me.
  
  I tend to shy away from books with UX in the title. It's just to trendy right now. UX isn't new by any stretch, though, so finding books that expand your horizons a bit is a good thing.

Congratulations! I can only speak to my own experience, but I took a (non-required) introduction to communication sciences and disorders online class before really starting my postbacc year and we used this book. Having read most of this book for class has been SO helpful for me! I don't know how your program is structured, but I started my postbacc year with language development, anatomy and neuroanatomy so there was no real "introduction." This book/class gave me a framework to put everything I was learning into and made sure that it wasn't all brand new to me. Just a thought! And obviously, I've linked the 2nd edition because there's no need to spend $130 on the new shiny one when you're not using it for class or therapy! :) Best of luck.

Sorry for being slow to respond!

Yes, probably the single best resource to look at is a book called Choosing to train in public health which gives a pretty great overview of the area and the application process.

There is also a lot of information from the UK Faculty of public health https://www.fph.org.uk/.

The final source of information is to consider contacting a Training Programme Director directly in the UK. The programme run out of Oxford has a strong international focus so that might be one to consider. This this is the website for the School.

Feel free to message me if you have any other questions.

Not a book recommendation, but I really, really recommend watching the documentary Alive Inside. I believe it's still on Netflix? What I learned about music therapy from it has helped me connect very deeply with multiple dementia and Parkinson's patients over the years.

The late, great Oliver Sacks also stars as an expert on it, and he wrote Musicophilia, of which there are a couple of chapters that deal with music & memory. I really enjoyed reading that.

Edit: Found my booklist. Here's a really simple handbook that helps guide you in having difficult conversations with seriously ill patients and their families about the patient's condition. It's aimed primarily at doctors (it was made for oncologists originally), but many of its tenets and suggestions can be applied to any level of caregiver.

• Mastering Communication with Seriously Ill Patients: Balancing Honesty with Empathy and Hope by Back, Arnold, and Tusky
  
  Because you're working on a dementia unit, I'd also start familiarizing yourself with death & dying - not just the physiological process, but the ethical and philosophical levels as well (both societal and personal). If you're not familiar with it, working with dying people can be very scary and uncomfortable, and you'll find yourself feeling moral distress because you're mentally still trying to apply curing principles of care to someone who cannot be cured. Once you become more familiar with this stage of life, you're probably going to recognize a lot of aggressive, futile care happening, and THAT's going to become emotionally very difficult for you.
  
  Recs on that:
  
  
• Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
  
  
• How We Die by Sherwin B Nuland
  
  
• Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death by Joan Halifax
  
  
• The End-of-Life Handbook: A Compassionate Guide to Connecting with and Caring for a Dying Loved One by David Feldman

A1:

I believe this is correct, but the part that complicates this matter is interstate commerce. There is a difference between a state dictating its regulations regarding health insurance companies and entirely preventing individual citizens from being a customer of an out-of-state insurance company that does not have the same regulations. The way I see it, it's the difference between being forced to work in the state in which you live and having the opportunity to, say, live in New Jersey and work in NYC.

A2:

Insurance companies would flock to states with the least amount of regulation, but that doesn't mean that only the lowest-covered plans with the lowest prices will be bought. It depends on what people want.

Let's say there's a state with no insurance regulations. Now, a company can offer a plan that includes pregnancy services, or it can offer a plan that does not include pregnancy services, based on the age and sex of the consumer. Obviously, the former would be more expensive, but it is up to the consumer to decide.

The issue is if you have regulations that dictate that every insurance company and plan must offer pregnancy services, that's an unnecessary cost to a husband and wife in their 50s.

B/C:

Yes, it would be very unpopular to offer a service for free to a specific group while forcing all others to pay for it, and then right the ship by having individuals be responsible for their own payments in order to increase efficiency and lower overall cost.

Regarding Canada, yes, it has "free" health care, but in socialized industries, either costs are high due to inefficiency or shortages are inevitable. So, when you see that costs are lower per capita in socialized health systems such as the one in Canada, there also exist absurd wait times because of said shortage. The average wait time in Canada is 47 weeks for neurosurgery, 38 weeks for orthopaedic surgery, 28.5 weeks for eye surgery, and 26 weeks for plastic surgery. The shortest wait time for a specialist is that for oncological services, and even that is a full month - quite a period when every treatment counts in the fight against cancer. (Source: http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/healthcare-wait-times-hit-20-weeks-in-2016-report-1.3171718)

In addition to long wait times, health care shortages manifest as a shortage of capital and health care equipment. The US has at best a mockery of a market health care system. Yet, in 1992, compared per capita to Canada, we had 8x more MRI machines (Washington state had more MRI machines than all of Canada), 7x more radiation therapy units for cancer treatment, 6x more lithotripsy units, and 3x more open-heart surgery units (Source: Patient Power, by John Goodman and Gerald Musgrave). We've become more centrally planned since then regarding health care, yet still have 5x more MRI machines and 3x more CT scanners per capita (Source: http://www.ncpa.org/pub/ba649).

Think about the fact that despite Canadians' "free" access to care, people are still choosing to go to another country to pay for medical services that would be free in their own country.
We all want lower costs, but the way to lower them is not to deny care for those who either legitimately need or are willing to pay for it. It is to decrease overconsumption on others' dime and increase supply and competition.

Of course, part of increasing supply includes increasing the number of doctors, but so long as the United States places caps on the number of residency positions available for medical school graduates, there won't be a significant increase in the supply of PCPs and specialists, at least for the near future.

I don't know the full answer to your question. But Renee Fox and Judith Swazey, in their book The Courage to Fail have a chapter on this. In 1973 surgeons began to think that they had the ability to do heart transplants successfully. One of the things I don't like about the chapter, though, is they don't explain why they thought this. Dogs were still dying in post-op recovery, so I don't know why they thought it would be any different for humans.

Anyway, two hospitals, one in Chicago and a Canadian hospital (I think in Manitoba) began doing heart transplants. Only no one was living very long. Some died in two weeks, others lasted six or eight months. These were all patients with very low life-expediencies without surgery, mind you.

After nine surgeries, all with very low success, those in the Canadian hospital fought about whether to do a tenth. The main surgeon wanted to move forward. The director of the hospital didn't. I should have said that the surgeon at the Chicago hospital was the mentor of the surgeon at the Canadian hospital and he was faring no better. Finally, the director of the Canadian hospital said to his surgeon "Do you think you're a better surgeon than your mentor? Because he's failing left and right [paraphasing]" He admitted that he was not. They decided not to do the tenth surgery. That patient wound up living six more years on his own, far beyond what would have been expected with surgery.

Heart transplants in the Chicago hospital stopped shortly thereafter. What followed was a long voluntary moratorium on heart transplants until anti-rejection drugs were invented. It's an interesting story in professional medical ethics.

The Healthcare Handbook

Blurb:

> The American health care system is vast, complex and confusing. Books about it shouldn't be. The Health Care Handbook is your one-stop guide to the people, organizations and industries that make up the U.S. health care system, and the major issues the system faces today. The Handbook's five chapters (250 pages) cover:

> * Inpatient and outpatient health care and delivery systems

• The different types of health insurance and how they're structured
  
• Health policy and government health care programs
  
• Concise summaries of 31 different health professions
  
• Medical research, technology, and drugs
  
• A clear summary of the Affordable Care Act, challenges to the law, and other reform options.
  
• Economic concepts and the factors that make health care so expensive
  
• The Pharmaceutical and Medical Device industries
  
  In my opinion, this book has a great balance of completeness/readability - I had a pretty fragmented knowledge of the healthcare system, and this book tied everything together and filled in the gaps.
  
  Full disclosure: The Healthcare Handbook was written by two students at the med school that I attend, and our class was given free copies of the book - but I totally think it's worth the $8.

Almost all our textbooks this year are required new editions. We can’t buy used ones - this is because the medicine behind Nursing practise is constantly changing.

Porth’s pathophysiology - $186.50
https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/porth-pathophysiology-concepts-of-altered/9781451192896-item.html

Canadian fundamentals of nursing - $155
https://www.elsevier.ca/ISBN/9781926648538/Canadian-Fundamentals-of-Nursing

Communication in nursing - $87.70
https://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/0323354106/ref=dp_ob_neva_mobile

Calculate with confidence - $71.96 (USD)
https://www.elsevier.com/books/calculate-with-confidence-canadian-edition/unknown/978-1-927406-62-5

The practice of nursing research - $83.20 (USD)
https://www.elsevier.com/books/burns-and-groves-the-practice-of-nursing-research/gray/978-0-323-37758-4

Maternal child nursing care in Canada - $150
https://www.elsevier.ca/ISBN/9781771720366/Maternal-Child-Nursing-Care-in-Canada

Community health nursing: A Canadian perspective (4th ed.) - $140
https://www.amazon.ca/Community-Health-Nursing-Canadian-Perspective/dp/0133156257

A syllabus for adult health assessment. $12

Canadian Jensen's nursing health assessment: A best practice approach – enhanced reprint. - $166.50
https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/product/9781451192032-item.html?mkwid=sHJM65blR_dm&pcrid=44154474422&pkw&pmt&s_campaign=goo-Shopping_Books&gclid=EAIaIQobChMInoTtp6al1wIVRGV-Ch2ieAUzEAQYASABEgLJ9fD_BwE

Plus all our supplies:

Stethoscope (Littman Classic Stethoscope ~ $120-160)
Penlight (~$4)
Sphygmomanometer with calibrated cuff and certified gauge blood pressure unit (latex free) (~$25)
Watch with a second hand or digital display ($7)

Currently I’m at $1,052.86 for textbooks (plus a bit extra since two of my sources were in USD) and $1,208.86 for supplies. That’s just for this semester - there’s more for next semester. I’m pretty sure I’m not grossly overestimating considering I know how much I’ve already spent on my books.

I hear you and my heart goes out to you, to all of us.

Read Being Mortal by Atul Gawande before offering to move anyone in. It's not just having another housemate. As people age, especially beyond 80, they regress in ways that aren't obvious until difficult decisions need to be made. So, Nana is cooperative and kind from a distance, but move her in and your life with your SO and family will suffer.

I love my mom, and she's easy going, but if she lived with us it would be very difficult for my husband to unwind at the end of his day and talk openly. Conversation would be rather superficial when not in the privacy of our bedroom.

Again, read that book, your public library probably has it, and good luck. I would like to hear how it goes if you have time (I know it's in the future).

> I want to live again. I want to go out and enjoy every single minute God gives me here on Earth. I don't want to schedule my day around taking pills, or my week around when I am going to have to go in for an infusion. I am at peace with my choice and I just wish someone understood.

You should share this article with your parents: http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/07/06/413691959/knowing-how-doctors-die-can-change-end-of-life-discussions

Here's an excerpt:

> In 2011, Murray, a retired family practice physician, shared his observations in an online article that quickly went viral. The essay, "How Doctors Die," told the world that doctors are more likely to die at home with less aggressive care than most people get at the end of their lives. That's Murray's plan, too.

And, if they still aren't convinced, have them read this: http://www.amazon.com/Being-Mortal-Medicine-What-Matters/dp/0805095152

In short, I think you made the right choice. Also, read both of those things yourself.

And if anyone tries to guilt you into resuming treatment, tell them they're grasping at false hopes, emotionally manipulating you, and that treatment is miserable, and you don't want to spend what little time you have left being miserable.

If there isn't a cure, there isn't a cure. Everyone's life ends anyways at some point. You have the blessing of knowing that you only have so long left. Make every second count, and tell anyone who thinks otherwise to kindly fuck off.

<3 best of luck OP.

I passed the registry with a 96/100. Let's put some things into perspective for you:

• You're overreacting. With two semesters left, you have yet to learn everything you're going to learn. By the time you learn it, you're going to forget what you learned in the first semester. That's why programs like mine dedicated the entire last semester to review and practice exams. See if your school administers the HESI exam for radiography; it's almost a mirror of the registry, and will tell you your standing. But you won't take that until the very end.
  
  
  
• The only study material I used was the Lange Q&A and Radiography PREP book with the included CD. If you can functionally answer all the questions on the practice CD to some degree of 90%, then you're going to ace the registry easily.
  
  
  
• The board exams you're going to be given are probably only including what you've learned so far, so review your old tests and focus on those.
  
  
  We took a Correctec practice exam and the beginning of our final semester, and we were told that a 50% or above meant that the student was on track to passing. That's assumed because, with an entire semester of review, your score is going to improve dramatically. You only need a 75 to pass. If you're two semesters out and almost at a 75 on the quizzes, I think you'll be fine.
  
  Relax! You're fine.

I'm really interested in history and urban design. The following are within reach

The E. Kimbark MacColl series is really good:

• Merchants, Money, and Power: The Portland Establishment, 1843-1913
  
• The shaping of a city: Business and politics in Portland, Oregon, 1885-1915
  
• The Growth of a City: Power and Politics in Portland, Oregon, 1915-1950
  
  Others.
  
  
• Ronda's Astoria & Empire
  
• Bart King's An Architectural Guidebook to Portland
  
• Walth's Fire at Eden's Gate: Tom McCall and the Oregon Story (what a great era in the-making-of-Portlandia)
  
• Carl Abbott's Greater Portland
  
• Korn's Lovejoy: A Year in the Life of an Abortion Clinic
  
  Abbott has a couple other Portland/Oregon books, I should really dig into them.

Yes, If Disney Ran Your Hospital is an actual book that we were required to read in my last hospital. It's definitely become an interesting paradigm, the shift to customer service and patient sat above all else. I think you need to find (and defend) your sweet spot. It sounds like you are actually already doing a lot of the customer-centric things. Where do you think the disconnect is?

https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Health-Policy-Clinical-Approach/dp/1259584755/ is an excellent introduction to the healthcare system in the USA.

With regards to "how we got where we are" and "where are we now," as someone else noted, Starr's The Social Transformation of American Medicine is an excellent history of the medical institution, at least until the 80's. Freidson's Profession of Medicine: A Study of the Sociology of Applied Knowledge is also superb. After that, you'll want to look at articles such as "The Shifting Engines of Medicalization" by Conrad (http://hsb.sagepub.com/content/46/1/3.abstract) and The Continued Social Transformation of The Medical Profession (http://hsb.sagepub.com/content/51/1_suppl/S94.abstract) by Timmerman and Ohs for a look at where the field is now.

US doesn't really do cost effectiveness analyses.

The US health care system will not be efficient so long as it's focused on maximizing profits rather than maximizing health.

An interesting and related read is The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care by TR Reid

We tend to use MacLeod's Clinical Examination here in Scotland and it is pretty great! Good detail, nice simple steps and explains what findings might mean, and it has an online resource too. There's a new edition coming out in June 2013 though so if you want the latest edition I'd hang fire or pre-order it.

Does your new job give you any journal access?

Beyond these Walls may be a good place to start. I'm personally working through a couple of books byAtul Gawande, including Being Mortal - not directly related to your field, but he's a great storyteller.

If your clinic has a research focus, it also couldn't hurt to take a look through any publications by your physicians. Amazon has bestseller lists in about any category, so you can get recommendations there too.

I would start with textbooks then move to reviews then to original research (but you probably won't get that far until actually in the job.)

Perhaps go by system if you want and look at the relevant basic sciences (anatomy/physiology/biochem/pharm etc), clinical medicine/surgery and then clinical skills (history taking/examination/procedural skills etc) for the major systems eg CVS, resp, endo, GI, gen surgery, neuro. I've linked an example textbook I used.

It's pretty tough to teach yourself the material to be honest so focus on the patient not the underlying science, go through cases (such as those featured in NEJM) to get a picture of the ambiguity involved in medicine. Visit websites such as almostadoctor, handwrittentutorials, trickcyclists, geekymedics123, DoctorNajeeb, teachmeanatomy, become familiar with the language and the feel of medicine as well as establishing some knowledge foundations. It's knowledge, skills and attitude that make a professional not just knowledge.

Found it: The Health Care Handbook

As I said - not a deep, immersive book, but it gives a very good, detailed pespective of the health care system as it exists today, written by people inside it.

Mmmm. I smell trollbait.

If you're really interested in educating yourself on healthcare, I sincerely suggest taking an hour and watching this lecture lecture. T.R. Reid provides one of the clearest, most politically objective overviews of world healthcare I've ever heard. The lecture is essentially a free run-through of his book. If you're capable of stepping beyond the American political echo chamber and really looking at what works and what doesn't work, then save yourself $13 and check out the lecture. I think you'll find it edifying.

Understanding Health Policy: A Clinical Approach by Thomas Bodenheimer and Kevin Grumbach

This is a great, easy-to-read book that has a lot of real-world examples. Bodenheimer is the person who coined the "Quadruple Aim."

If you want to do a deeper dive into health insurance, Health Insurance by Michael Morrisey is a great resource!

1. It works. Duh, it's cheaper and no one dies over insulin.
   
   
2. Class consciousness. There is no quicker way to get a redneck and a tech blogger on to the same side then to have them united to fight to keep a massive positive entitlement they share. Like it or not, you share more with a racist Trump voter then you do Elon Musk.
   
   If you'd like a good lecture on Single Payer I always suggest Tim Faust. He also just put out a good new book that I have been digging into, Health Justice Now: Single Payer and What Comes Next Here;s one of his big lectures
   
   "We can;t do anything become of Mitch McConnell" is an excise I have seen around this sub multiple times in the last week. And if you honestly believe that, please get the fuck out of the way and left the left have it's moment. You lost.

This piece is quite good. Credit where credit is due (though it's framed as a book review of Tim Faust's book Health Justice Now: Single Payer and What Comes Next, which I guess gives WP employees deniability if anyone accuses them of actually liking something about Bernie) .

Obviously the timing is suspicious, coming in the midst of Sanders' criticism of the paper's coverage. The book has been on Amazon for a couple of weeks and I assume was available to reviewers long before that. I guess it's the same as Amazon and Disney spontaneously, by pure coincidence, deciding to pay their workers $15/hr at the exact instant Bernie was beating them up.

Was this actually on the Op-ed page in the print version of the paper?

If you want an excellent read on both the cost and the morality of excessive, interventionist end-of-life care, I can't recommend Atul Gawande's Being Mortal enough. IMO, it's one of the most important books written in the last 5 years.

In a nutshell, I think it's trying to fix a broken system with an equally broken system.

There are two students from the Washington University School of Medicine that came and delivered a lecture to my class (I'm also in med school) about the breakdown of the US healthcare system and how it's really more of an amalgamation of 8 different systems. One of the standout points they mentioned was that while we are currently in a crisis in terms of trying to pay for everyone to have some form of healthcare, just about every other country out there that uses a more socialized system is eventually going to hit where we are, we just happened to get there first.

The sad truth of the matter is that there are limited medical resources (both in terms of equipment and staff), and some people are going to fall through the cracks. I distinctly remember during my interview process a discussion I had with one of my interviewers, who was a doctor and a long time administrator himself. He asked me if I thought healthcare was a right or a privilege. I said I thought it was a right, but it doesn't seem to be implemented that way. He responded that while the ideal is that it's a right, it currently is a privilege and will stay that way until we develop a much better system of managing healthcare. For the time being, there are too many people being forced into a system with too little resources and not enough money behind it to alter how care is given. Other problems are also related to the fact that the existence of insurance has greatly driven up the price of many procedures, there are often an overabundance of procedures (CT, MRI) performed emergently that don't need to be (out of fear of litigation, billing for insurance, or even just trying to give in to a overly-concerned parent), people are very ill-informed about their own health, and even the idea of what base-level care actually means (which is something that Obamacare is supposed to offer to everyone).

All that being said, I won't pretend to have a solution because the situation is so complicated and goes so far beyond just healthcare that I wouldn't know where to begin. Also, my own experience in dealing with healthcare is pretty one-sided, so there are probably some major points I'm missing here.

On a final note, the students I mentioned earlier actually wrote a book, so if you'd like to read up on the whole situation, here's the link-

http://www.amazon.com/The-Health-Care-Handbook-ebook/dp/B0088CMAUU/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1367512148&sr=1-1&keywords=the+health+care+handbook

Also, sorry this ended up being super long. The TL;DR version is just this basically: In a nutshell, I think it's trying to fix a broken system with an equally broken system.

I am currently reading surgeon Atul Gawande's book Being Mortal. The books deals with end of life care. I would recommend it to anyone who would like to see the research on this topic. Amazon

This book is super helpful if you aren't already familiar with it.

I highly recommend the book Being Mortal by Atul Gawande, it's the best thing I've ever read on this subject.

Interestingly, I've yet to talk to anyone who left Lindwall alive. Everyone I discussed the game with thought that would be cruel, and I agree, but I'd be interested to see other perspectives.

I really like the Healthcare Handbook https://www.amazon.com/Health-Care-Handbook-Concise-United-ebook/dp/B0088CMAUU

It's very concise and covers a lot of crucial topics that you should be aware of going into medicine. For social/economic/political issues ... This is a tough one. A lot of your answers will depend on where you are on the political spectrum. So wherever you lie on that, stick to your conviction and back it with evidence. I am on the left with issues so that's what my answers reflect. So bottom line, be well read in those areas. I'd recommend "Sociology: The Essentials"

I recommend this book
http://www.amazon.com/Being-Mortal-Medicine-What-Matters/dp/0805095152

It is a good read and addresses this issue.

Anymore, the focus is on industrializing the hospice business, making it an adjunct of existing nursing homes, and moving as many bodie$ through the system as possible.

Which is a damned shame. Atul Gawande has a wonderful new book out that discusses end-of-life care in great and compassionate depth. Highly recommended for anyone facing these painful decisions.

 I recommend getting one of the Lange study guides. I took the exam last Nov and used a seventh edition study guide and still passed. I believe the newest edition is tenth - https://www.amazon.com/LANGE-Radiography-Examination-Allied-Health/dp/0071833102 - there were questions from the book word for word on the test! I wouldn't stress to hard about it! 

Canada and Britain arguably have better healthcare than us. But France, Germany, and Japan have better healthcare than anyone, at a much lower price than we pay, and they aren't single-payer. Here's how they all work:

• Private, non-profit insurance plans
  
• A mandate
  
• Subsidies for anyone who can't afford the mandated coverage
  
• No denials or discrimination for preexisting conditions
  
• A nation-wide standard price list for providers
  
• No claim denials for anything on the price list
  
• Effective electronic medical records
  
  Everybody is covered, period. Doctors don't need administrative staff, insurance companies don't need medical underwriters. Japan is the cheapest with healthcare at 6% GDP, despite the fact that they have almost no waits and they go to the doctor an average of 14 times a year. Germany is the most expensive, but they cover things like week-long visits to the spa for stress relief, and they still spend a lot less than the U.S.
  
  Source: The Healing of America by T.R. Reid.

If anybody is interested in reading on the subject I highly recommend Atul Gawande's "Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End"

https://www.amazon.com/Being-Mortal-Medicine-What-Matters/dp/0805095152

But if the conversation around the ACA proves anything, if that logic goes out the door when you get an easy signed by like "death panels" and can convince a large number of Americans that the government is actually going to set up a board to decide what kind of Americans live and die.

I enjoyed Being Mortal, by Atul Gawande. My local library had it.

Read The Health Care Handbook

Long time reader and teacher here -

I agree with skipping any phonics instruction at this stage, and that trying audio books is a good idea. Written language is different than spoken, and listening to written will help with reading it. (Besides that, audio books are great!)

There is a lot of great nonfiction out there that he might enjoy -

these are collections of short articles, which may make them less intimidating:

Gene Weingarten: [The Fiddler in the Subway] (https://www.amazon.com/Fiddler-Subway-World-Class-Violinist-Performances/dp/1439181594/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505310496&sr=1-1&keywords=gene+weingarten) (I do my best to read everything he writes)

[Sarah Vowell's books] (https://www.amazon.com/Sarah-Vowell/e/B001ILFO7E/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1505310914&sr=1-2-ent)

some of [Joel Achenbach's books] (https://www.amazon.com/Joel-Achenbach/e/B001HMTVXC/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1505310626&sr=1-2-ent), including 'Why Things Are'

not collections, but so good

[The Boys in the Boat] (https://www.amazon.com/Boys-Boat-Americans-Berlin-Olympics/dp/0143125478)

[Seabiscuit] (https://www.amazon.com/Seabiscuit-American-Legend-Ballantine-Readers/dp/0449005615/ref=pd_sim_14_14?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=0449005615&pd_rd_r=4P2YTBS454KVBDDS78NP&pd_rd_w=YohLc&pd_rd_wg=g6ySs&psc=1&refRID=4P2YTBS454KVBDDS78NP)

[Tracy Kidder's books] (https://www.amazon.com/Tracy-Kidder/e/B000AQ8T3E)

[Being Mortal] (https://www.amazon.com/Being-Mortal-Medicine-What-Matters/dp/1250076226/ref=la_B00458K698_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505310411&sr=1-1)

And so many more - I just listened to Erik Larson's [The Devil in the White City] (https://www.amazon.com/Devil-White-City-Madness-Changed/dp/0375725601)...

This is a helpful book

http://www.amazon.com/Documentation-Manual-Occupational-Therapy-Writing/dp/1556429711

I liked this book.

I'd start by reading "Being Mortal" by Atul Gawande.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0805095152/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1480885429&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=being+mortal+book&dpPl=1&dpID=51C9yK9VzzL&ref=plSrch

Basically you need to prioritize what matters for you when you go into your treatment. With a child at home I would think that a high probability treatment method would take precedence over finances. But if you have an aggressive form of cancer with a lower probability of curing, it sounds like you will have substantially different priorities than most Americans (and that's a good thing IMO.)

You'll want to maximize quality of life for as long as possible while allowing you to continue to support your family and spend time with your child. Your treatment plan should be based around this, rather than throwing everything you can at the cancer hoping for a miracle.

>Is there some kind of phone service to call for medical advice?

Not only is the answer yes, but Canada basically took that idea from America.

Source: this book, the chapter on Canada's system.

Read this - https://www.amazon.com/dp/0805095152/ref=sxts_sxwds-tsp_2?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_p=3155180962&pd_rd_wg=5Vw5w&pf_rd_r=0Z9TFP0KJXXKPKJPVSZH&pf_rd_s=desktop-sx-top-slot&pf_rd_t=301&pd_rd_i=0805095152&pd_rd_w=vktq2&pf_rd_i=atul+gawande&pd_rd_r=NGRP8CJGMYTJS78EY751&ie=UTF8&qid=1502065845&sr=2

Understanding Health Policy: A Clinical Approach

https://www.amazon.com/Health-Care-Handbook-Concise-United-ebook/dp/B0088CMAUU

So there's a lot of discussion in this thread and I might get downvoted, but it is unfortunately not so simple for the US to just switch to universal healthcare (or universal Medicaid). Our system is dysfunctional, but it's a giant disgusting tumor that essentially lives on the largest and most vital parts of our economy, and you can't just cut it out. Love it or hate it our healthcare system, the way it is, employs millions of people in administration and health insurance who do jobs specific to this system. Obamacare was sabotaged by Republicans, but even Obamacare was just a band-aid and not a true fix.

If you want to get an excellent and academic overview of the issues facing US healthcare policy, check out this book: https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Health-Policy-Clinical-Approach/dp/1259584755/

MD here. Many of my elderly patients ask me, "Why do the politicians want to mess with the greatest health care system in the world?" I try to explain to them that we (USA) have one of the very worst systems in the world. Propoganda has worked on these patients. I tell them to read the book, "The Healing of America". (link below)
IMO, Americans are uninformed or misinformed about healthcare and our political system will prevent meaningful reform until a crisis arises which breaks the current system, or until there is a huge, national public outcry demanding change. We're just not there yet.
http://www.amazon.com/Healing-America-Global-Better-Cheaper/dp/1594202346/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1268663520&sr=8-1

Check out this book. Amazing writer. Think you’ll find it interesting.

If you don’t die a fairly painless death from ALZ, you’ll die a painful death from cancer. That’s just what the data says. I’ll take the ALZ path myself.

Eventually the decision will have to made, shut down a children’s vaccination program and divert the $$$s to ALZ research, that’s the issue coming up. What would you do?

The Atlantic Article :

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/dying-better/384626/


The book:

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0805095152?psc=1&ref=yo_pop_mb_pd_title


“Beautifully written . . . In his newest and best book, Gawande . . . has provided us with a moving and clear-eyed look at aging and death in our society, and at the harms we do in turning it into a medical problem, rather than a human one.” ―The New York Review of Books

PS. I don’t usually say “Nazi”, you can say the German people. They were just everyday people. Could have been anyone. Just like anyone you or I know.

Thanks for the reply, always enjoy thinking about it all.

Not really.

Chemotherapy is horrible for some patients making them feel even worse than death.

If you can, you should read up Being Mortal. I cannot recommend it enough. It will change your perspective about death, and also about life. Review 1, 2.

More.

> our most cruel failure in how we treat the sick and the aged is the failure to recognize that they have priorities beyond merely being safe and living longer; that the chance to shape one’s story is essential to sustaining meaning in life; and that we have the opportunity to refashion our institutions, culture, and conversations to transform the possibilities for the last chapters of all of our lives.

There's a great book that I recommend left and right to people - Atul Gawande's Being Mortal. It covers a huge breadth of topics regarding aging, end of life, terminal illness, cancer, hospice/palliative care, nursing homes, death, and modern medicine.
One of the recurring issues that comes up is the struggle for many doctors to effectively communicate expectations and outcomes with patients and their families. They find it challenging to have those very necessary, but difficult, conversations that basically boil down to "you have a disease that is 99% going to kill you and there's nothing more we can realistically do to extend your life without causing more suffering."We have encouraged doctors to change healthcare from a service to a conversation -- to involve patients in their care -- and it is overall a very good thing, but this has has an unintended consequence; doctors are afraid to dispense bad news. So they beat around the bush; they say, "you have stage IV renal cell carcinoma, with mets here, here, and here. What questions do you have for me?" The patient asks, "how do we treat it?" -- the doctor says, "well, we can do chemo, radiation... there are some medications, and a few clinical trials we could see if you qualify for..." (note how, at no point, the doctor says "there is no cure; this is terminal.") Time prognoses are scary (not to mention a potential liability!), so we tell them to try to avoid them - so we don't tell the patient they are likely going to be dead less than 3 months from now. The family member interjects that they want "everything possible" done to save their loved one, accompanied by printouts of google searches and random crap they found online. The doctor entertains this, even though they know it won't do anything - again, they're afraid to tell the patient no, this random experimental treatment or drug you're requesting isn't going to save your life, and you're still going to die.
So when the patient with stage IV cancer declines and winds up in the hospital, and all signs begin to point towards impending imminent death, the family is shocked, horrified, but most of all surprised. "I didn't expect her to die so fast", posted one of my facebook acquaintances after her mother rapidly declined; they had been on the "pray the terminal cancer away" and "we're waiting to get her into an experimental treatment, if her numbers improve juuuust a little bit!" denial train.
There was a study not too long ago that found that most patients with end-stage cancer didn't evaluate themselves as terminal. We see facebook walls filled with people posting about their loved ones or even themselves - I have stage 3, stage 4 cancer, prayers, more prayers, send hope; she's a warrior, she can beat this, he's so strong and will fight! Either we are promoting a culture of delusion or doctors aren't being blunt enough with their patients and their families about the realities of these kind of illnesses.
Because you're right - ask any doctor or nurse and they'll tell you, stage 4 means say your good-byes, tie up your loose ends, go on that vacation you always wanted to but never got around to, and find a means to end your life while you still have the autonomy to do so with the least suffering.