Surviving Your Doctors : Why the Medical System Is Dangerous to Your Health and How to Get Through It Alive

Every year, 90,000 patients die in our American hospitals due to medical error. The price to individuals, families, and society at large is in the billions, and yet wrongful medical outcomes are often swept under the rug. Patients need to know how to avoid medical blunders from the minute they step foot in their doctor's office or hospital. This book, written from an insider's perspective, walks readers through the potential hazards of healthcare and offes guidance for how to avoid injury or worse.;I. EVERYDAY MEDICAL AND HEALTH CONCERNS. Taking control of your health care, or, The wisdom of 2nd and 3rd opinions -- Insurance companies: organized crime or just bad policies -- An apple a day: and other things to protect your health when visiting the doctor's office -- Does your kid really need that shot? Protecting your children in the system -- The pharmacy and prescription drugs, or, Beware of the spoonful of sugar that helps the "medicine" go down -- Visiting the emergency room without feeling like a bit-player on a TV drama -- II> MAJOR DISEASES AND LONG-TERM ISSUES. A real heart-to-heart about cardiac care -- how to handle the big C from A to Z: coping with cancer treatment -- Baby boom or bust: how to stroll through maternity, neonatal, and fertility issues -- You give me fever: infection and communicable diseases -- How to maintain some sanity in the mental health system -- III. THE HOSPITAL AND MAJOR PROCEDURES. Hospital outpatient visits and how to make sure you actually get out! Hospital stays: as dangerous as a war zone? -- Medical tests and how to avoid becoming a lab rat! -- Major surgeries, or, How to make sure you still have a leg to stand on afterward! -- IV. THE FUTURE OF MEDICINE. A cure for the medical system.

Every year, 90,000 patients die in our American hospitals due to medical error. The price to individuals, families, and society at large is in the billions, and yet wrongful medical outcomes are often swept under the rug. Patients need to know how to avoid medical blunders from the minute they step foot in their doctor's office or hospital. This book, written from an insider's perspective, walks readers through the potential hazards of healthcare and offers guidance for how to avoid injury or worse.

Publishers Weekly

With at least 100,000 hospital patients dying each year, associate professor and practicing internist Klein (From Anecdote to Antidote) calls medical malpractice in the U.S. a "pandemic," with mortality numbers comparable to "smoking, auto accidents, and pollution," placing the U.S. behind most of Europe, "including Poland and the Czech Republic." While Klein supports universal healthcare modeled on Medicare, he asserts that we'll need more: "substandard or negligent care have been swept under the rug" by the medical profession for too long. As such, he insists that the medical profession needs "medical courts governed by specialists in medical ethics and respected physicians" to analyze mistakes and discipline offenders. Further, patients and their families must be empowered to become part of the "treating team," researching their own symptoms whenever possible and demanding proper screening, blood work, and second opinions. Klein offers anecdotes and examples from his own career with internal and infectious medicine, as well as his experience as an expert witness in malpractice litigation, in this useful, though somewhat diffuse, resource.
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Surviving Your Doctors, with its in-depth explanations, guidance, and direction will be the basic training manual patients need to work their way through the health care maze. It serves as a map of the medical minefield, told from the perspective ofa doctor yet designed to reveal the faults in the system and the things that can and do go wrong during the course of both routine and special procedures and office visits. Filled with real stories of medical mishaps, anecdotes, and checklists, this bookwill walk readers through major areas of the medical world - from the doctor's office to the pharmacy, from the laboratory to the ER - giving them a clearer picture of how things really work, what healthcare workers really think, and how to take back control of their health and the care they receive. Here, Klein covers such topics as: " Health insurance " Hospital stays " Emergency room visits " Routine office visits and tests " Special health concerns "Surviving Your Doctors, with its in-depth explanations, guidance, and direction will be the basic training manual patients need to work their way through the health care maze. It serves as a map of the medical minefield, told from the perspective of a doctor yet designed to reveal the faults in the system and the things that can and do go wrong during the course of both routine and special procedures and office visits. Filled with real stories of medical mishaps, anecdotes, and checklists, this book will walk readers through major areas of the medical world - from the doctor's office to the pharmacy, from the laboratory to the ER - giving them a clearer picture of how things really work, what healthcare workers really think, and how to take back control of their health and the care they receive."--Publisher's website Surviving Your Doctors, with its in-depth explanations, guidance, and direction will be the basic training manual patients need to work their way through the health care maze. It serves as a map of the medical minefield, told from the perspective of a doctor yet designed to reveal the faults in the system and the things that can and do go wrong during the course of both routine and special procedures and office visits. Filled with real stories of medical mishaps, anecdotes, and checklists, this book will walk readers through major areas of the medical world - from the doctor's office to the pharmacy, from the laboratory to the ER - giving them a clearer picture of how things really work, what health care workers really think, and how to take back control of their health and the care they receive.