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Being mortal : medicine and what matters in the end / by Gawande, Atul,author.;
Includes bibliographical references.
Subjects: Medical ethics.; Palliative treatment.; Quality of life.; Terminal care.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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You bet your life : from blood transfusions to mass vaccination, the long and risky history of medical innovations / by Offit, Paul A.,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Four months into the coronavirus pandemic, as the death count surged, the FDA made a risky decision: it approved an anti-malarial drug as a treatment for coronavirus, despite limited data on its efficacy or side effects. A month later, the FDA withdrew its recommendation, but by then, the damage had been done. The drug was ineffective and sometimes even lethal. The mistake was hardly a one-off. As virologist Paul. A. Offit shows in You Bet Your Life, from antibiotics and vaccines to x-rays and genetic engineering, risk, and our understanding of it, have shaped the course of modern medicine, paving the way for its greatest triumphs and tragedies. By telling the stories of the events--and of the frequent hypocrisy and cravenness of the characters at their center--Offit shows how risk, and failure, have driven innovation, and importantly, how by examining our mistakes we can make better medical predictions and decisions going forward. From the outlandish origins of blood transfusions, which began with humans receiving blood for barnyard animals, to the the disastrous debut of the first polio vaccine, and the backstabbing and infighting that surrounded early gene therapies, he captures the drama that surrounds medical research, the way ego and laziness can collide with science, and ultimately how those factors should inform what we choose to do and have done to us in the clinic. The history is fascinating in its own right, but the worldwide rush to create a coronavirus vaccine only makes learning from the lessons of history essential. Weighing the uncertainties of a treatment against its potential benefits is one of medicine's greatest ethical dilemmas, and Offit examines it from every angle. He explores not just how patients and their families respond to risk but how everyone from physicians and researchers to universities and regulators do, too, and how that ultimately determines what treatments are put forward. Not everyone has the same goal. And too often the patient's health is secondary. But as Offit shows, we can all minimize risk and failure by learning how to recognize conflicts of interest, to draw inferences from animal models, and to evaluate risk, even when we have limited data. Along the way, Offit asks who should decide what risks are acceptable, and who should pay when the results are fatal. In the end, however, Offit argues that we are gambling whatever we do--and that we need to take that seriously, whether we pursue a treatment or decide to do nothing at all. The answers aren't simple, and the outcomes are life or death. Examining these questions with the compassion of a pediatrician and the rigor of a scientist, Offit reminds us that we all have a role to play in ensuring that medicine upholds its very first principle: to do no harm"--
Subjects: Medical ethics.; Risk assessment.; Pharmacology, Experimental.; Drugs;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks / by Skloot, Rebecca,1972-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Subjects: Biographies.; Lacks, Henrietta, 1920-1951; Cancer; African American women; Human experimentation in medicine; HeLa cells.; Cancer; Cell culture.; Medical ethics.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Mercies in disguise : a story of hope, a family's genetic destiny, and the science that rescued them / by Kolata, Gina Bari,1948-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The phone rings. The doctor from California is on the line. "Are you ready Amanda?" The two people Amanda Baxley loves the most had begged her not to be tested-at least, not now. But she had to find out. If your family carried a mutated gene that foretold a brutal illness and you were offered the chance to find out if you'd inherited it, would you do it? Would you walk toward the problem, bravely accepting whatever answer came your way? Or would you avoid the potential bad news as long as possible? In Mercies in Disguise, acclaimed New York Times science reporter and bestselling author Gina Kolata tells the story of the Baxleys, an almost archetypal family in a small town in South Carolina. A proud and determined clan, many of them doctors, they are struck one by one with an inscrutable illness. They finally discover the cause of the disease after a remarkable sequence of events that many saw as providential. Meanwhile, science, progressing for a half a century along a parallel track, had handed the Baxleys a resolution-not a cure, but a blood test that would reveal who had the gene for the disease and who did not. And science would offer another dilemma-fertility specialists had created a way to spare the children through an expensive process. A work of narrative nonfiction in the tradition of the The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Mercies in Disguise is the story of a family that took matters into its own hands when the medical world abandoned them. It's a story of a family that had to deal with unspeakable tragedy and yet did not allow it to tear them apart. And it is the story of a young woman-Amanda Baxley-who faced the future head on, determined to find a way to disrupt her family's destiny."--
Subjects: Medical genetics.; Genetic disorders.; Genetic screening;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Say Anarcha : a young woman, a devious surgeon, and the harrowing birth of modern women's health / by Hallman, J. C.,author.;
Includes bibliographic key to online citations and index."In 1846, a young surgeon, J. Marion Sims ("The Father of Gynecology"), began several years of experimental surgeries on a young enslaved woman known as Anarcha ("The Mother of Gynecology"). This series of procedures--performed without anesthesia and resulting in Anarcha's so-called "cure"--forever altered the path of women's health. Despite brutal practices and failed techniques, Sims proclaimed himself the curer of obstetric fistula, a horrific condition that had stymied the medical world for centuries. Parlaying supposed success to the founding of a new hospital in New York City--where he conducted additional dangerous experiments on Irish women--Sims went on to a profitable career treating gentry and royalty in Europe, becoming one of the world's first celebrity surgeons. Medical text after medical text hailed Anarcha as a pivotal figure in the history of medicine, but little was recorded about the woman herself. Through extensive research, author J. C. Hallman has unearthed the first evidence ever found of Anarcha's life that did not come from Sims's suspect reports. With incredible tenacity, Hallman traced Anarcha's path from her beginnings on a Southern plantation to the backyard clinic where she was subjected to scores of painful surgical experiments, to her years after in Richmond and New York City, and to her final resting place in a lonely Virginia forest. When Hallman first set out to find Anarcha, the world was just beginning to grapple with the history of white supremacy and its connection to racial health disparities exposed by COVID-19 and the disproportionate number of Black women who die while giving birth. In telling the stories of the "Mother" and "Father" of gynecology, Say Anarcha excavates the history of a heroic enslaved woman and deconstructs the biographical smokescreen of a surgeon whom history has falsely enshrined as a heroic pioneer. Kin in spirit to The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Hallman's dual biographical narratives tell a single story that corrects errors calcified in history and illuminates the sacrifice of a young woman who changed the world only to be forgotten by it-until now"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Jackson, Anarcha, approximately 1821-1869.; Sims, J. Marion (James Marion), 1813-1883.; Enslaved women; Fistula, Vesico-vaginal; Gynecologists; Gynecology; Human experimentation in medicine; Medical ethics;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Sexploitation : helping kids develop healthy sexuality in a porn-driven world / by Pierce, Cindy.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Sexploitation exposes the truth to parents, kids, educators, and the medical profession about the seen and unseen influences affecting children, inspiring parents to take the role as the primary sexuality educator"--Provided by publisher.LSC
Subjects: Sexual ethics for youth.; Pornography.; Sex.; Sex instruction for children.; Parenting.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Stronger than infertility : the essential guide to navigating every step of your journey / by Huhman, Heather R.,author.;
"This indispensable, comprehensive, and accessible reference book to infertility provides people with the tools they need to be their own best advocates as they navigate fertility treatments and highs and lows of their infertility journey. Author Heather Huhman guides readers through every stage of the process -- from knowing when to seek medical advice to parenting after infertility, and everything in between. There's the medical nitty gritty: getting a diagnosis (or not); selecting a fertility clinic that's right for you; understanding IUI and IVF and genetic testing; a comprehensive list of medications and their side effects, and much more. There are emotional high and lows: staying hopeful while managing grief and depression, maintaining and strengthening your relationship, and navigating religious and ethical concerns. And then there is the practical and often complicated questions around affording treatments, dealing with your workplace (including the military), and everything you need to know about insurance and fertility treatments. Stronger Than Infertility breaks down complicated clinical information and expert medical advice from top specialists in the field. The book includes first-person stories and hard-won advice from women who have been down this long and often painful road (Huhman included) and offers a clear-eyed look at the emotional and psychological landmines that come with the journey. The result is a book that inspires as much as it educates and is a much-needed source of support and inspiration for readers hungry for understanding and hope"--
Subjects: Fertilization in vitro, Human.; Human reproductive technology.; Infertility, Female.; Infertility, Female; Infertility.; Infertility;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Owning the sun : a people's history of monopoly medicine from aspirin to COVID-19 vaccines / by Zaitchik, Alexander,1974-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Owning the Sun tells the story of one of the most contentious fights in human history: the legal right to control the production of lifesaving medicines. Medical science began as a discipline geared toward the betterment of all human life, but the merging of research with intellectual property and the rise of the pharmaceutical industry warped and eventually undermined its ethical foundations. Since the Second World War, federally funded research has facilitated most major medical breakthroughs, yet these drugs are often wholly controlled by price-gouging corporations with growing international ambitions. Why does the U.S. government fund the development of medical science in the name of the public, only to relinquish exclusive rights to drug companies, and how does such a system impoverish us, weaken our responses to global crises, and, as in the case of AIDS and COVID-19, put the world at risk? Outlining how generations of public health and science advocates have attempted to hold the line against Big Pharma and their allies in government, Alexander Zaitchik's first-in-kind history documents the rise of medical monopoly in the United States and its subsequent globalization. From the controversial arrival of patent-wielding German drug firms in the late nineteenth century, to present-day coordination between industry and philanthropic organizations-including the influential Gates Foundation-that stymie international efforts to vaccinate the world against COVID-19, Owning the Sun tells one of the most important and least understood histories of our time"--
Subjects: Medical care, Cost of; Medicine;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Red zone : from the offensive line to the front line of the pandemic / by Duvernay-Tardif, Laurent,1991-author.;
"On July 24, 2020 Laurent Duvernay-Tardif sent shockwaves through the sports world by becoming the first NFL player to opt out of the coming season. The only active player who is also a medical doctor, Laurent spent the months directly after winning the Super Bowl working in a health facility in Quebec on the front lines of the pandemic. As plans for the 2020 NFL season ramped up and daily cases continued to skyrocket, Laurent realized that playing and potentially spreading the virus was antithetical to everything he believed. For the first time in his remarkable career, he couldn't square his twin passions of football and medicine. So he temporarily stepped away from the game he loved, returning to his medical work and enrolling in Harvard to earn his master's in public health, hoping to maximize his celebrity status in order to effect change on a larger scale. But that was just the beginning of this fascinating story. As Laurent settled into his new reality, he quickly came up against a severe COVID outbreak in his hospital unit. Meanwhile, his team, the Kansas City Chiefs entered the playoffs as the #1 seed in the AFC and were favorites to repeat as champions amidst a season that saw countless games postponed due to league-wide outbreaks, including one in his own offensive line group in Kansas City. This fast-paced memoir will take you inside Laurent's life as he grappled with his role as both a medical professional and NFL football player, taking readers on a journey into Duvernay-Tardiff's remarkable personal story, where his insatiable curiosity and work ethic led him from his family's bakery in downtown Montreal to his dual role as both a medical school graduate and championship-winning right guard in the NFL. From the incredible highs of winning the Super Bowl to the incredible sorrow of losing a patient on his ward to Covid, from the high of Super Bowl win to an unexpected trade, RED ZONE is riveting account of Tardiff's incredible intelligence, determination, sacrifice, and conviction. It's also a captivating story of one of the most fascinating and accomplished people in professional sports."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Duvernay-Tardif, Laurent, 1991-; COVID-19 Pandemic, 2020-; Football players; Physicians;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Genetics for dummies / by Robinson, T. R.(Tara Rodden),author.; Spock, Lisa Cushman,author.;
"Are you a student of the sciences? Into research? Curious about how genetics affects your life? Then this book is for you! Here's a no-nonsense guide to help you understand genetics without boggling your mind. Get an overview of the basics, including cell biology and how traits are inherited. Delve into DNA, explore how genetics affects your health, see how gene therapy works, and understand the ethical issues involved with the field. This updated edition covers recent developments, trends, applications, and much more."--
Subjects: Handbooks and manuals.; Genetics; Medical genetics; Human genetics;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
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Results 1 to 10 of 13 |