The Care Of Strangers The Rise Of America S Hospital System

Finalist for the 1988 Pulitzer Prize in History. “[A] splendid history of the hospital in America... What makes this an important book is that Mr. Rosenberg has managed to tell the story of the hospital as a microcosm of American society... It is remarkable that an institution so central to our society, and to our medical system as the hospital has been for the last 100 years, has had to wait so long for a general historical analysis. It is Mr. Rosenberg’s accomplishment that the wait has been well worth it... Very well written and rich with interpretation, it deserves a wide audience not only among those concerned with medicine but also those with an interest in cities, social welfare and the professions.” — The New York Times “Charles E. Rosenberg’s long-awaited The Care of Strangers marks a milestone in our understanding of the hospital as a social institution... It should be read by anyone who wants a sophisticated analysis of the forces that have shaped the modern hospital system.” — Washington Post Book World “Rosenberg, a prize-winning historian, has written a detailed account of what has brought about the spectacular changes through which the hospital became accepted as the repository of medical knowledge and skills... Rosenberg interestingly deals with the main factors that elevated the hospital to its present eminence: medical-technological advances, especially in surgery, differential diagnosis, and drugs; demographic changes, with cities far outpacing rural areas in population; the assertiveness of doctors in promoting the hospital as a source of professional status and education; the widespread emergence of patient private payment and health insurance; the big expansion of federal subsidies for research and patient care... the book... is well-written and convincing... fascinatingly informative.” — The Los Angeles Times “A splendid contribution to medical history, one that should have a wide appeal to physicians, social scientists, and laypersons.” — Journal of the American Medical Association “The Care of Strangers unravels an intricate and multifaceted story; it is one worthy of Rosenberg’s unparalleled skills as a historian of medicine... In this book, as in much of Rosenberg’s mature scholarship, an enormous command of the sources matches his powerful integrative vision... This brilliant and ambitious book is the history of American medicine; it defines the field and is likely to organize the efforts of our subdiscipline for the next generation.” — Bulletin of the History of Medicine “Sociologists, economists, philanthropists, the members of the several health professions — even historians — tend to view hospitals from their own parochial perspectives. All would learn from Charles Rosenberg’s comprehensive view of authority, class relations, technology, and administration in the American hospital from 1800 to modern times. This superb book shows how that unique institution has always been a microcosm of American society.” — Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences “Rosenberg’s masterful synthesis of the history of the American hospital... offers readers, not simply the story of the development of a central institution of modern life, but an account that is also in many ways a history of the emergence of modern medicine... elegantly written and eminently readable.” — Reviews in American History “Rosenberg’s study makes a major contribution to the historiography of hospitals in America... This study is an elegantly written book that broadens the history of hospitals and places it squarely within the larger field of American social history... a major contribution not only to the history of medicine but also to the history of institutions and to American social history in general.” — American Historical Review

A history of the American hospital system, from the time of Jefferson's administration when they were largely charitable institutions working for the poor, through to the 20th century when hospitals became centres of learning and the primary care site for most citizens.

Looks at the ways American hospitals have changed since the nineteenth century, and discusses medical education, and hospital administration

The image of the female caregiver holding a midnight vigil at the bedside of a sick relative is so firmly rooted in our collective imagination we might assume that such caregiving would have attracted the scrutiny of numerous historians. As Emily Abel demonstrates in this groundbreaking study of caregiving in America across class and ethnic divides and over the course of ninety years, this has hardly been the case. While caring for sick and disabled family members was commonplace for women in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century America, that caregiving, the caregivers' experience of it, and the medical profession's reaction to it took diverse and sometimes unexpected forms. A complex series of historical changes, Abel shows, has profoundly altered the content and cultural meaning of care. Hearts of Wisdom is an immersion into that "world of care." Drawing on antebellum slave narratives, white farm women's diaries, and public health records, Abel puts together a multifaceted picture of what caregiving meant to American women--and what it cost them--from the pre-Civil War years to the brink of America's entry into the Second World War. She shows that caregiving offered women an arena in which experience could be parlayed into expertise, while at the same time the revolution in bacteriology and the transformation of the formal health care system were weakening women's claim to that expertise. Table of Contents: Acknowledgments Introduction Part One: 1850-1890 1. "Hot Flannels, Hot Teas, and a Great Deal of Care": Emily Hawley Gillespie and Sarah Gillespie, 1858-1888 2. An Overview of Nineteenth-Century Caregiving 3. "Tried at the Quilting Bees": Con'icts between "Old Ladies" and Aspiring Professionals Part Two: 1890-1940 4. A "Terrible and Exhausting" Struggle: Martha Shaw Farnsworth, 1890-1924 5. "Just as You Direct": Caregiver Translations of Medical Authority 6. Negotiating Public Health Directives: Poor New Yorkers at the Turn of the Century Reviews of this book: This excellent historical review of female caregiving within families as a transformative experience identifies conditions that make this form of human connectedness rewarding and meaningful. --J.E. Thompson, Choice This is a breathtaking work in terms of its depth and its breadth. Emily Abel's research is impressive in its time frame, wide range of topics, and wonderful source material. What she has given us, for the first time, is a full-length study of the female support network, not only for childbirth but for a whole range of health issues. With her pleasing writing style and clear, readable prose, she gives us much more than mere glimpses of anonymous people--she provides the reader with a sense of the texture of human lives. --Susan L. Smith, University of Alberta The reader of Hearts of Wisdom is surprised by the topic and content, but is left with the sense that the most central story of human possibility has been left out of all other history books. The work offers a substantive contribution to history, feminist scholarship, caregiving professions, and informal caregivers. --Patricia Benner, R.N., Ph.D, University of California, San Francisco

All manner of medical practitioners have had their scruples dissected ad infinitum. In spite of the attention paid to medical ethics and bioethics, little has been paid to the ethical roles and responsibilities of those who are ultimately in charge of hospital governance: hospital trustees. Deriving from a Hastings Center research project involving meetings with a national task force of experts and extensive interviews with 98 nonprofit hospital trustees and CEOs over a two-year period, The Ethics of Hospital Trustees shows that the decisions made by these often overlooked members of the health community do raise important ethical issues, and that ethical dimensions of trustee service should be more explicitly recognized and discussed. Practical as well as theoretical, The Ethics of Hospital Trustees uncovers four basic principles: 1. Fidelity to mission; 2. Service to patients; 3. Service to the community; and 4. Institutional stewardship. In delineating the extremely important functions of hospital trustees, from patient safety to financial responsibility, the contributors outline not only how hospital trustees do perform—they give a fresh understanding to how they should perform as well.

This comprehensive history of medicine and public health in America covers changes and developments over four centuries, from the arrival of the first Europeans to the twenty-first century.

Regulation shapes all aspects of America's fragmented health care industry. While the health and lives of patients as well as almost one-sixth of the national economy depend on its effectiveness, health care regulation in America is bewilderingly complex. 'Health Care Regulation in America' is a guide to this regulatory maze.

Examines five areas of Americans' built environment and looks at the relationships of size and scale to the way Americans live their lives.