Main description:

In this book a physician long involved in health policy issues at the national level presents a wise, achievable vision for American health care. From his wide ranging professional experiences and his personal experiences with three life threatening illnesses, he charts a uniquely American "epidemiology of hope" that flows from the country's vast medical research investments and technology transfer capabilities; challenges patients and health professionals alike to recognize a central decision making role for the patient on the healing team; and offers thought-provoking insights into physician-patient communication, the placebo effect, suffering, dealing with death and dying, and the nature of the social contract between those in the healing business and those seeking to be healed. Most important, after provocatively grading American health care from B-plus to D in relation to hope, mercy, justice, and autonomy, the book proposes a new metric, the Organizational Therapeutic Index (OTI), for assessing and improving our health care system.

Contents:

Contents Foreword by B. H. Minchew, MD ix Introduction When Doctors Become Patients xiii PART I The Core of Health Care Chapter 1 A Physician's Lessons from Being a Patient 3 Chapter 2 Healing with Technology and with Words, Art, and the Senses 31 Chapter 3 Self-Healing, Our Internal Pharmacy, and the Placebo Effect 55 Chapter 4 Understanding Suffering 72 Chapter 5 Where Life and Death Meet 93 PART II Elements for Successful Adaptation in the Twenty-first Century Chapter 6 Unity in Diversity with Patients and Populations 125 Chapter 7 On Serving and Collaborating 146 Chapter 8 Three Paradigms for Education and Practice 160 Chapter 9 Covenants, Commitment, and Tragic Choices 168 Chapter 10 Measuring American Health Care with Human Values 188 Appendix The Organizational Therapeutic Index Model 213 Notes 231 Acknowledgments 243