The Good Doctors

In the summer of 1964 medical professionals, mostly white and northern, organized the Medical Committee for Human Rights (MCHR) to provide care and support for civil rights activists organizing black voters in Mississippi. They left their lives and lucrative private practices to march beside and tend the wounds of demonstrators from Freedom Summer, the March on Selma, and the Chicago Democratic Convention of 1968. Galvanized and sometimes radicalized by their firsthand view of disenfranchised communities, the MCHR soon expanded its mission to encompass a range of causes from poverty to the war in Vietnam. They later took on the whole of the United States healthcare system. MCHR doctors soon realized fighting segregation would mean not just caring for white volunteers, but also exposing and correcting shocking inequalities in segregated health care. They pioneered community health plans and brought medical care to underserved or unserved areas. Though education was the most famous battleground for integration, the appalling injustice of segregated health care levelled equally devastating consequences. Award-winning historian John Dittmer, author of the classic civil rights history Local People: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi, has written an insightful and moving account of a group of idealists who put their careers in the service of the motto "Health Care Is a Human Right."

“A lovely, lethal, disturbing novel” of the dashed hopes of post-apartheid South Africa and the small betrayals that doom a friendship (The Guardian). An extraordinary parable of the corruption of the flesh and spirit, The Good Doctor has inspired enthusiastic interest around the world and has assured Damon Galgut’s place as a major international talent. When Laurence Waters arrives at his new post at a deserted rural hospital, staff physician Frank Eloff is instantly suspicious. Laurence is everything Frank is not—young, optimistic, and full of big ideas. The whole town is beset with new arrivals and the return of old faces. Frank reestablishes a liaison with a woman, one that will have unexpected consequences. A self-made dictator from apartheid days is rumored to be active in cross-border smuggling, and a group of soldiers has moved in to track him, led by a man from Frank’s own dark past. Laurence sees only possibilities—but in a world where the past is demanding restitution from the present, his ill-starred idealism cannot last. “Galgut’s prose, its gentle rhythms and straightforward sentences edging toward revelation, is utterly seductive and suspenseful . . . Galgut is a master of psychological tension. . . . Tragic and brilliant.” —The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

What really happened before, during and just after the sensational, Prohibition era murder of the police chief by the town's most admired physician has been saved from oblivion by this book by retired newspaper editor Wint Capel, The Good Doctor's Downfall. The author dug up the facts and has arranged them to show in great detail how brilliant Dr. J. W. Peacock ambushed the young, arrogant police chief, John Taylor, on a busy downtown street in Thomasville, a small North Carolina factory town. The doctor finished him off with a World War I souvenir, a German Luger. The doctor, also a city councilman, and the chief began feuding after the chief decided to crackdown on those, like the doctor, who ignored the laws against gambling and drinking. The feud became unbelievably bitter and explosive. By the time of the attack downtown, the doctor had been convinced, "It's either him or me." In a trial that featured the best legal minds in North Carolina, the doctor barely escaped the electric chair. Then, a year later, he escaped a prison for the criminally insane. He managed to outrun them all. Only a horrible accident in California could rob him of his freedom.

What does it mean to be a good doctor today? Dr. Thomas Lee, a renowned practicing physician, healthcare executive, researcher, and policy expert, takes us to the frontlines of care delivery to meet inspiring, transformative doctors who are making a profound difference in patients’ lives—as well as their own. These revealing, intimate profiles of seven remarkable physicians are more than a reminder of the importance of putting patients first. They provide an invaluable working model of what it means to be a good doctor, how to become one, and how to remain one for the benefit of patients and colleagues alike. It’s a model that sustains physicians themselves over years and decades, combating the constant threat of burnout. These stories capture the daily challenges every caregiver faces—while highlighting the amazing personal triumphs that make their jobs so rewarding. You’ll meet Dr. Emily Sedgwick, the breast radiologist who redesigned screening techniques to reduce patients’ fears; Dr. Merit Cudkowicz, a neurologist who is leading the way in ALS research and treatments; Dr. Mike Englesbe, a transplant surgeon who is improving how physicians prescribe analgesics in response to the opioid epidemic; Dr. Laura Monson, a pediatric plastic surgeon addressing the long-term social effects of cleft palates; Dr. Lara Johnson, a primary care physician dedicated to providing care to the homeless; Dr. Joseph Sakran, a trauma surgeon who started a movement among healthcare providers to curb gun violence, and Dr. Babacar Cisse, a neurosurgeon who was an undocumented alien and once worked as a restaurant busboy, and epitomizes what it means to be a “Dreamer.” Their stories are not only powerful but offer practical lessons and insights into developing high reliability cultures, resilience, and improvement mindsets. This is what is takes to be a good doctor.

The story of two doctors, a father and son, who practiced in very different times and the evolution of the ethics that profoundly influence health care As a practicing physician and longtime member of his hospital’s ethics committee, Dr. Barron Lerner thought he had heard it all. But in the mid-1990s, his father, an infectious diseases physician, told him a stunning story: he had physically placed his body over an end-stage patient who had stopped breathing, preventing his colleagues from performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation, even though CPR was the ethically and legally accepted thing to do. Over the next few years, the senior Dr. Lerner tried to speed the deaths of his seriously ill mother and mother-in-law to spare them further suffering. These stories angered and alarmed the younger Dr. Lerner—an internist, historian of medicine, and bioethicist—who had rejected physician-based paternalism in favor of informed consent and patient autonomy. The Good Doctor is a fascinating and moving account of how Dr. Lerner came to terms with two very different images of his father: a revered clinician, teacher, and researcher who always put his patients first, but also a physician willing to “play God,” opposing the very revolution in patients' rights that his son was studying and teaching to his own medical students. But the elder Dr. Lerner’s journals, which he had kept for decades, showed the son how the father’s outdated paternalism had grown out of a fierce devotion to patient-centered medicine, which was rapidly disappearing. And they raised questions: Are paternalistic doctors just relics, or should their expertise be used to overrule patients and families that make ill-advised choices? Does the growing use of personalized medicine—in which specific interventions may be best for specific patients—change the calculus between autonomy and paternalism? And how can we best use technologies that were invented to save lives but now too often prolong death? In an era of high-technology medicine, spiraling costs, and health-care reform, these questions could not be more relevant. As his father slowly died of Parkinson’s disease, Barron Lerner faced these questions both personally and professionally. He found himself being pulled into his dad’s medical care, even though he had criticized his father for making medical decisions for his relatives. Did playing God—at least in some situations—actually make sense? Did doctors sometimes “know best”? A timely and compelling story of one family’s engagement with medicine over the last half century, The Good Doctor is an important book for those who treat illness—and those who struggle to overcome it.

From cold and flu to pneumonia and bronchitis; from tonsillitis and sinusitis to SARS and COVID-19: eminent Mount Sinai lung specialist and leading pulmonologist Neil Schacter, M.D., explains how to treat and prevent these illnesses. In The Good Doctor's Guide to Colds and Flu, he describes how to avoid illness, boost immunity, and combat congestion, fever, and discomfort when cold, flu, and other respiratory infections strike. This updated edition includes: A new chapter that offers practical strategies on how to prevent, treat, and recover from COVID-19 Prevention and treatment plans for the 6 most common respiratory infections: colds, influenza, sinusitis, bronchitis, tonsillitis, and pneumonia The four stages of a cold, and one of the best ways to avoid catching one The latest research on well-known cold remedies such as Vitamin C, Zinc, and Echinacea The four major types of pneumonias, and the prevention technique that can eliminate more than 80 organisms that cause it Why humming five seconds a day can reduce risk of sinus problems The surprising reason why women catch more colds Advice for people with diabetes, asthma, allergies, and more!

Mastering the "ART of Communication" is the theme and aim of this invaluable eBook! A must for becoming a loved clinician by your patients and enjoying a highly successful and fulfilling career in clinical Medicine. This eBook serves as a simple guide to essential Communication Styles for the most frequent patient-contact scenarios and clinical encounters. It is meant to be a “quick reference” guide. Reading through it should be quick and easy! Interested users may broaden their knowledge and understanding by exploring the literature on each specific topic. It will be most valuable to those front line clinicians in-training during their everyday routines whether in the medical wards, outpatient clinics, emergency rooms, etc. It will also be very useful for undergraduates, those sitting their clinical examinations e.g. OSCE, Long Case Presentations, etc. as well as faculty trainers and examiners. However, all healthcare professionals e.g. Pharmacists, Nurses, Social workers, etc. will also find it very beneficial.

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Writing with all the passion of Love Story and power of The Class, Erich Segal sweeps us into the lives of the Harvard Medical School's class of 1962. His stunning novel reveals the making of doctors—what makes them tick, scheme, hurt . . . and love. From the crucible of med school’s merciless training through the demanding hours of internship and residency to the triumphs—and sometimes tragedies—beyond, Doctors brings to vivid life the men and women who seek to heal but who must first walk through fire. At the novel’s heart is the unforgettable relationship of Barney Livingston and Laura Castellano, childhood friends who separately find unsettling celebrity and unsatisfying love—until their friendship ripens into passion. Yet even their devotion to each other, even their medical gifts may not be enough to save the one life they treasure above all others. Doctors—heartbreaking, witty, inspiring, and utterly, grippingly real—is a vibrant portrait that culminates in a murder, a trial . . . and a miracle.