Making A Medic

How is medical knowledge made? New methods for research and clinical care have reshaped the practices of medical knowledge production over the last forty years. Consensus conferences, evidence-based medicine, translational medicine, and narrative medicine are among the most prominent new methods. Making Medical Knowledge explores their origins and aims, their epistemic strengths, and their epistemic weaknesses. Miriam Solomon argues that the familiar dichotomy between the art and the science of medicine is not adequate for understanding this plurality of methods. The book begins by tracing the development of medical consensus conferences, from their beginning at the United States' National Institutes of Health in 1977, to their widespread adoption in national and international contexts. It discusses consensus conferences as social epistemic institutions designed to embody democracy and achieve objectivity. Evidence-based medicine, which developed next, ranks expert consensus at the bottom of the evidence hierarchy, thus challenging the authority of consensus conferences. Evidence-based medicine has transformed both medical research and clinical medicine in many positive ways, but it has also been accused of creating an intellectual hegemony that has marginalized crucial stages of scientific research, particularly scientific discovery. Translational medicine is understood as a response to the shortfalls of both consensus conferences and evidence-based medicine. Narrative medicine is the most prominent recent development in the medical humanities. Its central claim is that attention to narrative is essential for patient care. Solomon argues that the differences between narrative medicine and the other methods have been exaggerated, and offers a pluralistic account of how the all the methods interact and sometimes conflict. The result is both practical and theoretical suggestions for how to improve medical knowledge and understand medical controversies.

Firefighter, medic and author Michael Morse bares his soul with first-person accounts from a 25-year career vividly defining the first responder’s vital role as a medical professional. EMS by Fire: The Making of a Fire Medic puts the reader at the scene “where people desperately wait, frantic, impatient, lonely, dying or dead ... the public we serve is not interested in who arrives at their emergency, as long somebody comes, preferably well trained and well equipped.” “Writing for and about firefighters and EMS personnel from the ambulance officer’s seat is tricky on the good days, career suicide on the bad, and quite gratifying on the rest. “The truth is that the ratio of misery to inspiration is greatly exaggerated in my writings, with misery beating inspiration by a 20-1 margin. Yet, it is those moments of inspiration that make the misery bearable ...” Features: Gain a better understanding of the jobs of fire-based EMS personnel Improve your skills and build teamwork between firefighters and EMS True stories and real-life scenarios from a veteran of the EMS and Fire service

Making a Medic is a comprehensive guide to everything you need to know in order to succeed at medical school, including: how to study effectively (and still have time for fun!) the latest books, websites and apps to use how to get the most out of clinical placements how to master OSCEs and written exams how to ace the Situational Judgement Test and Prescribing Safety Assessment and much, much more! Making a Medic is laid out intuitively year by year, so that readers can easily find the information most relevant to their current stage of study. Packed full of cartoons, anecdotes and practical tips, the content is easy to read and simple to put into action. Whether you're in first year or final year, this book will help you manage your workload, revise effectively for exams and secure the scores you need for the Foundation Programme jobs you want.

This volume presents novel concepts to help physicians and health care providers better understand the thought processes and approaches used in clinical decision-making and how we develop those skills as we transition from being a medical student to post-graduate trainee to independent practitioner. Approaches presented range from simple rules of thumb, pattern recognition, and heuristics, to more formulaic methods such as standard operating procedures, checklists, evidence-based medicine, mathematical modeling, and statistics. Ways to recognize and manage errors and how our decision-making can be improved, are also discussed. An Introduction to Medical Decision-Making presents several innovative techniques to allow the reader to use the principles presented and integrate the ethical, humanistic and social aspects of decision-making with the pragmatic and knowledge-based aspects of clinical medicine. It also highlights how our thinking processes, emotions, and biases affect decision-making. This invaluable resource will allow students and physicians to evaluate and critically discuss their decisions objectively to become more efficient and effective, and maximize the quality of care they provide.

Medical Decision Making provides clinicians with a powerful framework for helping patients make decisions that increase the likelihood that they will have the outcomes that are most consistent with their preferences. This new edition provides a thorough understanding of the key decision making infrastructure of clinical practice and explains the principles of medical decision making both for individual patients and the wider health care arena. It shows how to make the best clinical decisions based on the available evidence and how to use clinical guidelines and decision support systems in electronic medical records to shape practice guidelines and policies. Medical Decision Making is a valuable resource for all experienced and learning clinicians who wish to fully understand and apply decision modelling, enhance their practice and improve patient outcomes. “There is little doubt that in the future many clinical analyses will be based on the methods described in Medical Decision Making, and the book provides a basis for a critical appraisal of such policies.” - Jerome P. Kassirer M.D., Distinguished Professor, Tufts University School of Medicine, US and Visiting Professor, Stanford Medical School, US

‘ ‘A riveting read of the difficult and important things of what medics do.’ Matthew Heneghan doesn't see people at their best. Instead, they come to him in desperate need. The experience of needing a medic can be like waking up in a foreign country. You frantically want to know, ‘What is happening with me?’ The ability to reassure people, to give the foreign country a ‘name,' helps people. Author Matthew Heneghan always knew he wanted to be a medic. In this raw new medical memoir, he interweaves the stories of his growing up with the brutal realities of living with life and death each day. With sensitive observation and graceful writing, this book explores the highs and lows of being a paramedic in a world where everything is not always what it seems. Matthew writes that being a paramedic caused his ‘soul to bleed.’ It is not about the practicalities of the job but about the evil of the world that he is forced to see day after day. He calls himself part of the ‘walking wounded.’ In ‘A Medic’s Mind -Love, Loss and All Things in between,’ Matthew Heneghan writes of the life-altering experiences and other struggles he faced in his journey to becoming a good medic – from being a youth in a home where his mom struggled with mental illness, to his medic training in the United States army. He tells of exhausting shifts as a paramedic and coming face-to-face with his own mortality and the socioeconomic dilemmas of his patients. It is a read not to be missed!

The Encyclopedia of Medical Decision Making presents state-of-the-art research and ready-to-use facts sorting out findings on medical decision making and their applications.

Publisher's Note: Products purchased from 3rd Party sellers are not guaranteed by the Publisher for quality, authenticity, or access to any online entitlements included with the product. Introducing an innovative, systematic approach to understanding differential diagnosis, Frameworks for Internal Medicine helps students learn to think like physicians and master the methodology behind diagnosing the most commonly encountered conditions in internal medicine.