The Doctors Are In

Get to know the eccentric alien known as the Doctor in this “out-of-this-world read for both Classic and New Who fans” (Library Journal). From his beginnings as a crotchety, anti-heroic scientist in 1963 to his current place in pop culture as the mad and dangerous monster-fighting savior of the universe, the character of Doctor Who has metamorphosed in his many years on television. And yet the questions about him remain the same: Who is he? Why does he act the way he does? What motivates him to fight evil across space and time? The Doctors Are In is a guide to television’s most beloved time traveler from the authors of Who Is the Doctor and Who’s 50. This is a guide to the Doctor himself—who he is in his myriad forms, how he came to be, how he has changed (within the program itself and behind the scenes) . . . and why he’s a hero to millions.

Female Doctors in Canada is an accessible collection of articles by experienced physicians and researchers exploring how systems, practices, and individuals must change as medicine becomes an increasingly female-dominated profession. As the ratio of practicing physicians shifts from predominately male to predominately female, issues such as work hours, caregiving, and doctor-patient relationships will all be affected. Canada's medical education is based on a system that has always been designed by and for men; this is also true of our healthcare systems, influencing how women practice, what type of medicine they choose to practice, and how they wish to balance their personal lives with their work. With the intent to open a larger conversation, Female Doctors in Canada reconsiders medical education, health systems, and expectations, in light of the changing face of medicine. Highlighting the particular experience of women working in the medical profession, the editors trace the history of female practitioners, while also providing a perspective on the contemporary struggles women face as they navigate a system that was tailored to the male experience, and is yet to be modified.

A look at the emotional side of medicine—the shame, fear, anger, anxiety, empathy, and even love that affect patient care Physicians are assumed to be objective, rational beings, easily able to detach as they guide patients and families through some of life’s most challenging moments. But doctors’ emotional responses to the life-and-death dramas of everyday practice have a profound impact on medical care. And while much has been written about the minds and methods of the medical professionals who save our lives, precious little has been said about their emotions. In What Doctors Feel, Dr. Danielle Ofri has taken on the task of dissecting the hidden emotional responses of doctors, and how these directly influence patients. How do the stresses of medical life—from paperwork to grueling hours to lawsuits to facing death—affect the medical care that doctors can offer their patients? Digging deep into the lives of doctors, Ofri examines the daunting range of emotions—shame, anger, empathy, frustration, hope, pride, occasionally despair, and sometimes even love—that permeate the contemporary doctor-patient connection. Drawing on scientific studies, including some surprising research, Dr. Danielle Ofri offers up an unflinching look at the impact of emotions on health care. With her renowned eye for dramatic detail, Dr. Ofri takes us into the swirling heart of patient care, telling stories of caregivers caught up and occasionally torn down by the whirlwind life of doctoring. She admits to the humiliation of an error that nearly killed one of her patients and her forever fear of making another. She mourns when a beloved patient is denied a heart transplant. She tells the riveting stories of an intern traumatized when she is forced to let a newborn die in her arms, and of a doctor whose daily glass of wine to handle the frustrations of the ER escalates into a destructive addiction. But doctors don’t only feel fear, grief, and frustration. Ofri also reveals that doctors tell bad jokes about “toxic sock syndrome,” cope through gallows humor, find hope in impossible situations, and surrender to ecstatic happiness when they triumph over illness. The stories here reveal the undeniable truth that emotions have a distinct effect on how doctors care for their patients. For both clinicians and patients, understanding what doctors feel can make all the difference in giving and getting the best medical care.

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Most people would consider a knife wound to the stomach a serious health risk, but a similar scalpel wound in an operating room is often shrugged off. In Doctors Are More Harmful Than Germs, Dr. Harvey Bigelsen explains how today’s medical doctors overprescribe surgery and ignore its long-term health implications. Any invasive medical procedure, he argues—including colonoscopies and root canals—creates inflammation in the body, leading to serious and long-lasting health problems. Inflammation, according to Dr. Bigelsen, is the real cause of all chronic disease (persistent or long-lasting illness). Noting that Western medicine has yet to “cure” a single chronic disease, Bigelsen points to a new paradigm: one that treats each patient as an individual (rather than as a set of symptoms), avoids further damage to the body through surgery, and looks for the root cause of chronic disease in past damage done to the patient’s body—whether caused by a bad fall or a scalpel. Provocatively written and radical in its approach, Doctors Are More Harmful Than Germs challenges readers to rethink everything they believe about illness and how to treat it.

In the 1830s, when a brave and curious girl named Elizabeth Blackwell was growing up, women were supposed to be wives and mothers. Some women could be teachers or seamstresses, but career options were few. Certainly no women were doctors. But Elizabeth refused to accept the common beliefs that women weren't smart enough to be doctors, or that they were too weak for such hard work. And she would not take no for an answer. Although she faced much opposition, she worked hard and finally—when she graduated from medical school and went on to have a brilliant career—proved her detractors wrong. This inspiring story of the first female doctor shows how one strong-willed woman opened the doors for all the female doctors to come. Who Says Women Can't Be Doctors? by Tanya Lee Stone is an NPR Best Book of 2013 This title has common core connections.

Doctors in Denial examines the relationship between the Canadian medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry, and explains how doctors have become dependents of the drug companies instead of champions of patients' health. Big Pharma plays a role in every aspect of doctors' work. These giant, wealthy multinationals influence how medical students are trained and receive information, how research is done in hospitals and universities, what is published in leading medical journals, what drugs are approved, and what patients expect when they go into their doctors' offices. But almost all doctors deny the influence and control the drug companies exert. In this book Dr. Lexchin urges the medical profession to make the changes needed to give priority to protecting and promoting patients' health and benefitting society, rather than enabling Big Pharma to dominate health care while raking in billions in profits from citizens and governments.