Category: Health Care
The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Overview (from Publisher’s Weekly)
Pollan (The Botany of Desire) examines what he calls “our national eating disorder” (the Atkins craze, the precipitous rise in obesity) in this remarkably clearheaded book. It’s a fascinating journey up and down the food chain, one that might change the way you read the label on a frozen dinner, dig into a steak or decide whether to buy organic eggs. You’ll certainly never look at a Chicken McNugget the same way again.Pollan approaches his mission not as an activist but as a naturalist: “The way we eat represents our most profound engagement with the natural world.” All food, he points out, originates with plants, animals and fungi. “[E]ven the deathless Twinkie is constructed out of… well, precisely what I don’t know offhand, but ultimately some sort of formerly living creature, i.e., a species. We haven’t yet begun to synthesize our foods from petroleum, at least not directly.”Pollan’s narrative strategy is simple: he traces four meals back to their ur-species. He starts with a McDonald’s lunch, which he and his family gobble up in their car. Surprise: the origin of this meal is a cornfield in Iowa. Corn feeds the steer that turns … Read the rest of this entry »How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman
General Description (from Publisher’s Weekly)
I wish I had read this book when I was in medical school, and I’m glad I’ve read it now. Most readers will know Jerome Groopman from his essays in the New Yorker, which take on a wide variety of complex medical conditions, evocatively communicating the tensions and emotions of both doctors and patients.But this book is something different: a sustained, incisive and sometimes agonized inquiry into the processes by which medical minds—brilliant, experienced, highly erudite medical minds—synthesize information and understand illness. How Doctors Think is mostly about how these doctors get it right, and about why they sometimes get it wrong: “[m]ost errors are mistakes in thinking. And part of what causes these cognitive errors is our inner feelings, feelings we do not readily admit to and often don’t realize.” Attribution errors happen when a doctor’s diagnostic cogitations are shaped by a particular stereotype. It can be negative: when five doctors fail to diagnose an endocrinologic tumor causing peculiar symptoms in “a persistently complaining, melodramatic menopausal woman who quite accurately describes herself as kooky.” But positive feelings also get in the way; an emergency room doctor misses unstable angina in a forest ranger … Read the rest of this entry »The Innovator’s Prescription by Clayton M. Christensen
General Description (from Amazon.com)
A groundbreaking prescription for health care reform–from a legendary leader in innovation . . .
Our health care system is in critical condition. Each year, fewer Americans can afford it, fewer businesses can provide it, and fewer government programs can promise it for future generations.
We need a cure, and we need it now.
Harvard Business School’s Clayton M. Christensen—whose bestselling The Innovator’s Dilemma revolutionized the business world—presents The Innovator’s Prescription, a comprehensive analysis of the strategies that will improve health care and make it affordable.
Christensen applies the principles of disruptive innovation to the broken health care system with two pioneers in the field—Dr. Jerome Grossman and Dr. Jason Hwang. Together, they examine a range of symptoms and offer proven solutions.
YOU’LL DISCOVER HOW
- “Precision medicine” reduces costs and makes good on the promise of personalized care
- Disruptive business models improve quality, accessibility, and affordability by changing the way hospitals and doctors work
- Patient networks enable better treatment of chronic diseases
- Employers can change the roles they play in health care to compete effectively in the era of globalization
- Insurance and regulatory reforms stimulate disruption in health care
Why the President Should Read It… Read the rest of this entry »