Special Topics Books - Page 6

The Scalpel and the Silver Bear

Lori Alvord, Elizabeth Cohen Van Pelt

List Price: $23.95 By: Bantam Amazon Marketplace: 41 new & used starting at $2.46

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Professionals & Academics -> Medical
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Specific Groups -> Women
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In a remarkable book that takes the reader on a spellbinding journey between two worlds, surgeon Lori Arviso Alvord describes her struggles to bring modern medicine to the Navajo reservation in Gallup, New Mexico—and to bring the values of her people to a medical care system in danger of losing its heart.

Finding the solutions to modern medicine's most daunting problems was far from the mind of a girl from a small, dusty town on a Navajo reservation. But Lori Arviso Alvord would leave the traditional hogans of her people to attend the prestigious Stanford University Medical School and become the first Navajo woman surgeon. Only after conquering the high-tech realm of the operating room would this extraordinarily talented doctor realize something was missing from contemporary medical care—an understanding of the whole person who has come seeking healing.

The Scalpel and the Silver Bear tells of Dr. Alvord's pioneering journey to become a woman surgeon, fighting the odds presented by her own culture and the unspoken rules that made surgery the territory of a privileged class of males. Then, having accomplished her dreams, the strong-willed young woman would find herself faced with a different challenge: learning another approach to medicine amid the Hataali, the medicine men of the Diné, the people we call Navajo.

Here in this moving, enlightening, and provocative volume, Dr. Alvord teaches us how she merged the latest breakthroughs of science and methodology with the ancient tribal paths to recovery and wellness. In dramatic encounters while practicing reservation medicine—a man whose intestine was pierced by a porcupine quill, which he insisted was placed there by an enemy's curse; a woman who had been struck by lightning and blamed her cancer on it; an all-night winter sing for a gravely ill young woman, attended by the whole community—Dr. Alvord witnessed the power of belief to influence health, for good or for ill. She discovered that patients undergoing chemotherapy did better after having a native healer at bedside, and that the feelings of both the patient and the surgeon could affect recovery time, postsurgical complications, and even whether the patient lived or died.

The secret, Lori Alvord discovered, lay in the Navajo philosophy of a balanced and harmonious life, called "Walking in Beauty." Her sharing of these ancient principles promises to have an immeasurable impact on today's doctors and patients by expanding the concept of mind-body healing to include the interconnectedness of all life. Personal, simply written, yet profoundly wise, The Scalpel and the Silver Bear joins those few rare works, such as Healing and the Mind, whose ideas have changed medical practices and our understanding of the world.

When the Air Hits Your Brain: Tales from Neurosurgery

Frank Vertosick

Amazon Price: $10.17 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: W. W. Norton Amazon Marketplace: 46 new & used starting at $8.69

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Medicine -> Special Topics -> History
Subjects -> Medicine -> Specialties -> Surgery -> Neurosurgery
Subjects -> Medicine -> Specialties -> Surgery -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 36 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

"Neurosurgeons do things that cannot be undone." 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Originally published in 1996, "When the Air Hits Your Brain," by Dr. Frank Vertosick, is a mesmerizing insider's look at "an arrogant occupation" whose practitioners operate on the spinal cord and the human brain ("a trillion nerve cells storing electrical patterns more numerous than the water molecules of the world's oceans"). A neurosurgeon must be supremely confident in his ability to get the job done; if he were to dwell on everything that could possibly go wrong during a procedure, he would be too terrified to operate. Because of the high potential for missteps, neurosurgical training is an arduous seven years of hell. Before he starts treating "brain cancers, spinal cord injuries, head trauma, [and] lethal hemorrhages," a trainee must endure a grueling regimen of study which includes repeated humiliation at the hands of verbally abusive mentors. This is not a profession for the faint-hearted, for when neurosurgery is unsuccessful, the results can be catastrophic. Even if the patient survives, his cognition, speech, movement, and vision may be forever compromised. In the words of Gary Stancik, a sardonic chief resident, the brain is like a '66 Cadillac: "It was built for performance, not for easy servicing."

Vertosick fell into neurosurgery by happenstance. He spent some time as a steelworker, majored in theoretical physics, and wound up choosing medicine by default. In the years to come, he would have to adjust to impossibly long hours, inadequate sleep, and hit-or-miss meals. He would become adept at performing quickly and efficiently under pressure. However, none of his earlier experiences would fully prepare him for the emotional roller-coaster that lay ahead. He was destined to endure a trial by fire when faced with such cases as a six-week old infant born with a malignant tumor, a twenty-two year old woman with devastating multiple injuries resulting from an auto accident, a Vietnam veteran with an intracranial aneurysm, and a twenty-eight year old pregnant woman with a lump of cancerous cells in her brain. Fortunately, Dr. Vertosick enjoyed some notable successes; he was instrumental in helping a number of gravely ill patients resume normal lives.

Although it is vital to care about and communicate with each patient, Vertosick argues that it is a mistake to become too personally invested in each outcome. Hardest of all, one must accept the unpleasant fact that even brain surgeons can commit colossal blunders. On one occasion, Vertosick sank into despair when one of his patients died because of what he perceived to be his incompetence. He could have given in to his torment and self-loathing and abandoned his career, but he ultimately decided to "stop moping over one postoperative death." In the words of the aforementioned Gary, "Yeah, it's a nightmare, but that's neurosurgery. Land of nightmares."

"When the Air Hits Your Brain" is impeccably and stylishly written, with fascinating asides about the complexities of medicine and the human body. Vertosick's wry and irreverent black humor serves as a welcome respite from the book's often grim subject matter. In his postscript, which was written in 2007, the author provides updates on the changes that have occurred in the last decade: by law, residents are not allowed to work more than eighty hours a week, aneurysms may now be treated without resorting to invasive surgery, and new technologies such as deep brain stimulation and "frameless stereotaxis (a kind of GPS system for navigating the brain)" are revolutionizing the field. This is an intelligent, moving, and enlightening book and one of the most powerful and intimate accounts that I have ever read on the making of a surgeon.

Editorial Review:

"Dramatic, moving, and utterly fascinating."—New York Times Book Review

With poignant insight and humor, When the Air Hits Your Brain chronicles one man's evolution from naïve and ambitious young intern to world-class neurosurgeon. In electrifying detail, Frank Vertosick Jr. describes some of the greatest challenges of his career, including a six-week-old infant with a tumor in her brain, a young man struck down in his prime by paraplegia, and a minister with a .22-caliber bullet lodged in his skull. Told through intimate portraits of Vertosick's patients and unsparing yet fascinatingly detailed descriptions of surgical procedures, When the Air Hits Your Brain—the culmination of decades spent struggling to learn an unforgiving craft—illuminates both the mysteries of the mind and the realities of the operating room.

The American Plague

Molly Caldwell Crosby

Amazon Price: $11.70 List Price: $15.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Berkley Trade Amazon Marketplace: 90 new & used starting at $1.25

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Disorders & Diseases -> General
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Disorders & Diseases -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> State & Local -> South

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 27 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In this account, a journalist traces the course of yellow fever, stopping in 1878 Memphis to "vividly [evoke] the Faulkner-meets-'Dawn of the Dead' horrors,"*-and moving on to today's strain of the killer virus.

Over the course of history, yellow fever has paralyzed governments, halted commerce, quarantined cities, moved the U.S. capital, and altered the outcome of wars. During a single summer in Memphis alone, it cost more lives than the Chicago fire, the San Francisco earthquake, and the Johnstown flood combined.

In 1900, the U.S. sent three doctors to Cuba to discover how yellow fever was spread. There, they launched one of history's most controversial human studies. Compelling and terrifying, The American Plague depicts the story of yellow fever and its reign in this country-and in Africa, where even today it strikes thousands every year. With "arresting tales of heroism,"** it is a story as much about the nature of human beings as it is about the nature of disease.

Wood Becomes Water: Chinese Medicine in Everyday Life

Gail Reichstein

Amazon Price: $13.60 List Price: $20.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Kodansha America Amazon Marketplace: 47 new & used starting at $11.35

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Alternative Medicine -> Chinese Medicine
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Alternative Medicine -> General
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Alternative Medicine -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

You will be amazed ! 5 out of 5 stars.
27 of 31 people found this review helpful.

We all love now to take care of our own health, right ?! Few of us understand, though, the Chinese medicine, unless you read a lot of books on same subject. And then you have to "digest" the information and apply it patiently to yourself. WE ALL ARE UNIQUE INDIVIDUALS. And the ones who will borrow or buy this book will prove to be the smart ones too. Not only that I would recommend this book to all of you who want to change your life for the better (and get rid of your daily pains) but this book --among the thousands written -- is an eye-opener to many other self-healing directions. Beware, at first you will say to yourself that you will need TIME and PATIENCE to go through it (which none of us HAVE anymore!), but you will feel smarter than any doctor in this world, after you assimilate the knowledge in this book. It is better than you imagined by its modest title. One of the best-kept secrets (until now !), trust me on this one. Good luck to all of you !

Editorial Review:

Does your back pain flare up in the evening? Perhaps your water element is weak. Allergies in the spring? Emotional outbursts? Perhaps your wood element is too strong. Using the five element system of Chinese cosmology as a key-wood, fire, earth, metal, water-Gail Reichstein unlocks the ancient mysteries of Chinese medicine and makes them available for the everyday health and well-being of modern readers.
Each chapter includes:
-Lists of common ailments associated with each element
-Feng shui solutions for the home and workplace
-Acupuncture treatment
-Dietary therapy
-Qigong exercises
Simple, easy to use, and practical, this introduction connects the physical, emotional, and spiritual forces at work in our lives and provides a vital contribution to the field of mind-body medicine.

Food & Mood: The Complete Guide to Eating Well and Feeling Your Best, Second Edition

Elizabeth Somer

Amazon Price: $12.92 List Price: $19.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Holt Paperbacks Amazon Marketplace: 83 new & used starting at $3.84

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Cooking, Food & Wine -> Natural Foods
Subjects -> Cooking, Food & Wine -> Special Diet -> Healthy
Subjects -> Cooking, Food & Wine -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Why do you feel tired after eating a full meal? Why do you have so much trouble concentrating? Why do you crave chocolate? Can diet affect depression? Is there a natural cure for insomnia? Nutrition expert Elizabeth Somer answers all these questions and more in this completely updated and revised second edition to her nutritional guide Food and Mood. The result of research encompassing thousands of the most up-to-date scientific studies, Somer explains how what we eat has a direct influence on how we feel, think, sleep, look, and act. She addresses specific food-related issues including health conditions, food cravings, diet struggles, stress, PMS, winter blues, energy levels, depression, memory, and sleep patterns, as well as tackling the issue of supplements and providing the real story on those you need and those you don't. Included is Somer's revolutionary Feeling Good Diet, a program that shows you how to take control of your eating habits to benefit mood and mental functioning now.

Krause's Food & Nutrition Therapy

L. Kathleen Mahan, Sylvia Escott-Stump

Amazon Price: $88.75 List Price: $115.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Saunders Amazon Marketplace: 48 new & used starting at $70.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Medicine -> Nursing -> Nutrition
Subjects -> Medicine -> Nursing -> General
Subjects -> Medicine -> Nursing -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In print for more than 50 years, KRAUSE'S FOOD & NUTRITION THERAPY has been recognized internationally as the most authoritative text on nutrition. This new edition continues its tradition of providing the most comprehensive and up-to-date content available today. New chapters on medical nutrition therapy for psychiatric disease and developmental disorders spotlight the advances made in these areas. Extensive appendices, tables, illustrations, figures, and clinical insight boxes give practical hands-on procedures and clinical tools with the most current information, including brand-new guidelines on food intake and physical activity, and highlight the inclusion of the new food guide pyramid, MyPyramid, to use in everyday practice.

• Edited by two leading experts in nutrition, L. Kathleen Mahan and Sylvia Escott-Stump, and written by nationally recognized contributors to ensure that all information is comprehensive and current.
• Hundreds of full-color illustrations bring nutrition therapy to life and provide a realistic representation of clinical practice.
• UNIQUE! Pathophysiology algorithms present the cause, pathophysiology, and the medical nutrition management for a variety of disorders and conditions, helping you better understand the illness process and provide optimum nutritional care.
• Clinical Insight, New Directions, and Focus On... boxes provide additional information and suggest further discussion, study, or research.
• Clinical Scenarios offer case studies that help you apply what you've learned to real-world situations.
• Relevant websites direct you to online resources for further information on specific chapter topics.
• Key Terms are defined at the beginning of each chapter and highlighted within the text to help you focus your study and test your mastery of the information.
• Evolve Student Resource contains WebLinks and more than 1,000 self-assessment study questions that provide instant feedback.

• "Medical Nutrition Therapy for Psychiatric Conditions" chapter explores recent research into the links between nutrition and mental disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder, dementia, depression, and schizophrenia.
• "Medical Nutrition Therapy for Developmental Disabilities" chapter looks at the unique nutritional needs of individuals with ADHD, Downs syndrome, cerebral palsy, and muscular dystrophy and the role medical nutrition therapy plays in providing effective care.
• Information on energy, macronutrients, vitamins, and minerals is now summarized in easy-to-read, "need-to-know" tables and bulleted lists, providing a quick review of basic nutrition.
• Updated information on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005 and MyPyramid presents information on the newest recommendations for nutrients and physical activity throughout the text, while integrating the customizable MyPyramid into plans of care.
• Sample "Nutrition Diagnosis" boxes in each chapter present a problem, its etiology, and its signs and symptoms before concluding with a sample nutrition diagnosis, providing you with real-life scenarios you may encounter in practice.
• Nutritional Facts in the appendices put the content of the chapter into a practical and convenient format that students and dietetics professionals can use in their education of the client on necessary nutritional care.
• Updated content is provided on the new Dietary Reference Intakes, the 2000 Dietary Guidelines and Healthy People 2010.
• New information is included on type 2 diabetes and prediabetes.
• The newest guidelines released by the National Institute of Health to assist with implementing the DASH diet for effective management of hypertension.
• The latest information is presented on dietary supplementation and integrative care, with cutting-edge evidence of how the nursing care process is changing to provide better care.

Another Day in the Frontal Lobe: A Brain Surgeon Exposes Life on the Inside

Katrina Firlik

Amazon Price: $10.17 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Random House Trade Paperbacks Amazon Marketplace: 115 new & used starting at $0.50

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Memoirs
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Professionals & Academics -> Medical
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 68 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Katrina Firlik is a neurosurgeon, one of only two hundred or so women among the alpha males who dominate this high-pressure, high-prestige medical specialty. She is also a superbly gifted writer–witty, insightful, at once deeply humane and refreshingly wry. In Another Day in the Frontal Lobe, Dr. Firlik draws on this rare combination to create a neurosurgeon’s Kitchen Confidential–a unique insider’s memoir of a fascinating profession.

Neurosurgeons are renowned for their big egos and aggressive self-confidence, and Dr. Firlik confirms that timidity is indeed rare in the field. “They’re the kids who never lost at musical chairs,” she writes. A brain surgeon is not only a highly trained scientist and clinician but also a mechanic who of necessity develops an intimate, hands-on familiarity with the gray matter inside our skulls. It’s the balance between cutting-edge medical technology and manual dexterity, between instinct and expertise, that Firlik finds so appealing–and so difficult to master.

Firlik recounts how her background as a surgeon’s daughter with a strong stomach and a keen interest in the brain led her to this rarefied specialty, and she describes her challenging, atypical trek from medical student to fully qualified surgeon. Among Firlik’s more memorable cases: a young roofer who walked into the hospital with a three-inch-long barbed nail driven into his forehead, the result of an accident with his partner’s nail gun, and a sweet little seven-year-old boy whose untreated earache had become a raging, potentially fatal infection of the brain lining.

From OR theatrics to thorny ethical questions, from the surprisingly primitive tools in a neurosurgeon’s kit to glimpses of future techniques like the “brain lift,” Firlik cracks open medicine’s most prestigious and secretive specialty. Candid, smart, clear-eyed, and unfailingly engaging, Another Day in the Frontal Lobe is a mesmerizing behind-the-scenes glimpse into a world of incredible competition and incalculable rewards.


From the Hardcover edition.

The Gold Coast Cure: The 5-Week Health and Body Makeover, A Lifestyle Plan to Shed Pounds, Gain Health and Reverse 10 Diseases

Andrew Larson, Ivy Larson

List Price: $21.95 By: HCI Amazon Marketplace: 62 new & used starting at $1.34

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Diets & Weight Loss -> Diets -> Healthy
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Diets & Weight Loss -> Diets -> Weight Loss
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Diets & Weight Loss -> Diets -> Weight Maintenance

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 40 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Finally, the diet that slims and tones and also heals the immune system and prevents degenerative diseases!

It's rare that a diet book comes along that matters. Not one that just helps you fit into your jeans but also changes your life. The Gold Coast Cure is that kind of diet. It will slim your waistline and keep you healthy. And if you’re not healthy now, it can reverse your symptoms.

That’s what it did for Ivy Larson, whose multiple sclerosis left her wearing a catheter and unable to walk up a flight of stairs. Undeterred, she and her husband, Dr. Andrew Larson, devised an anti-inflammatory whole foods diet and exercise plan to heal her. It worked. Today, her MS is in remission and she has the extra energy to keep up with their healthy toddler.

The Cure is changing lives. Let it tone your body, improve your appearance and prevent or reverse the following:

• obesity
• heart artery disease
• type II diabetes
• multiple sclerosis
• asthma
• allergies
• osteoarthritis
• fibromyalgia
• osteoporosis
• vascular dementia
• high blood pressure
• high cholesterol

The book will also include a bonus DVD featuring the Cure's resistant-training workout. The workout can be completed in 10-minute, 15-minute or 30-minute intervals.

Also includes:

• Over 75 Recipes
• A Complete Pantry Makeover
• A Brand-Name Shopping Guide
• A Daily Vitamin Planner

This extraordinary plan is: Family Friendly -Safe for Kids; Doesn't require Calorie Counting or Complicated Phases; Allows you to enjoy Coffee, a Sweet Treat and a Glass of Wine a Day.

Discover the Gold Coast Cure and Transform your body in just 5 weeks!

Lick the Sugar Habit

Nancy Appleton

List Price: $5.95 By: Avery Amazon Marketplace: 61 new & used starting at $0.01

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Diets & Weight Loss -> Diets -> General
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Diets & Weight Loss -> Diets -> General AAS
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Diets & Weight Loss -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 21 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Get a real book 1 out of 5 stars.
14 of 18 people found this review helpful.

This book was awful. I read "The Sugar Addict's Total Recovery Program" (DesMaisons) first, and I was spoiled by more rational, documented approach to the subject. To be fair, I only got through the first part of this book before I put it down in disgust. This book is the rantings of someone who feels passionately about something. Great. Now back it up. You can't just say, "This is bad and you have to do this!" Well... I suppose you can. But in my opinion that makes for a lousy book for someone who is trying to learn and separate fact from hysteria.

ENLIGHTENING!!! 5 out of 5 stars.
13 of 20 people found this review helpful.

This is a WONDERFUL and ENLIGHTENING work! Thank you for compiling this information and for sharing your own personal experience with Sugar Addiction Nancy Appleton . I have an interest in sugar addiciton and it's affects on the human body and found your book to be a great learning source.

Editorial Review:

In this eye-opening book, Dr. Appleton shows how sugar upsets the body chemistry and devastates the immune system--leading to a host of diseases. Included in the book are self-tests to discover sugarholic tendencies and tests for food allergies, 19 simple techniques to banish sugar cravings, and three detailed, low-sugar food plans to ease into a low-sugar life. Original.

Understanding Normal and Clinical Nutrition

Sharon Rady Rolfes, Kathryn Pinna, Ellie Whitney

Amazon Price: $143.96 List Price: $179.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Brooks Cole Amazon Marketplace: 12 new & used starting at $120.00

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Nutrition -> General
Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Nutrition -> General AAS
Subjects -> Medicine -> Nursing -> Nutrition

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 8 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Excellent Resource, even beyond class 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

First of all, I am fascinated by nutrition. It's a pretty cool thing to know how food contributes to our everyday existence. With that in mind, this book is a fantastic nutrition resource and reference. I've read a lot of extracurricular nutrition guides over the years and was under the impression I had a pretty good handle on the concepts. Nope. I felt like an amateur once I got into this book. There is so much more to learn and this book lays it out into a very "digestible" format.

Editorial Review:

UNDERSTANDING NORMAL AND CLINICAL NUTRITION, Eighth Edition, provides the most current and comprehensive coverage of both "normal" nutrition, such as digestion and metabolism, vitamins and minerals, and life cycle nutrition, as well as "clinical" nutrition related to diseases, such as nutrition and gastrointestinal, liver, and cardiovascular diseases. The text also incorporates a number of learning tools designed to help you retain the information and apply your knowledge so you are better prepared to work in a clinical setting. Features include case studies, "How To" boxes with examples of problem-solving in real-world situations, and study questions that further conceptual understanding of the material. Regardless of your course background, the text is organized and written in a clear, easy-to-follow format that will get you actively involved in the field of nutrition.