The American health care system is terminally ill. It is astonishingly expensive, remarkably variable in quality, and incapable of stemming the rising tide of chronic illness in our population. Yet, the majority of Americans believe it is the best system in the world and cling to the belief that, far from ailing, it delivers care superior to those of countries across the globe. The system has obliged us by providing an elaborate set of myths and misconceptions about American health care that significantly shape our beliefs. These myths keep us blissfully ignorant about the true quality, safety, and value of the care we receive. This ignorance has a price: it leads us to draw erroneous conclusions about our conditions, fail to properly evaluate potential treatment options, and rarely question our providers’ competency. The Myths of Modern Medicine looks at the real issues contributing to the dysfunction of our healthcare system and how these issues affect the care we receive. The book, based upon John Leifer’s 30 years of immersion in the healthcare industry, challenges some of our most commonly held misperceptions about this vitally important industry. Leifer strips away the elaborately constructed myths that conceal the ugly underbelly of healthcare and lays bare the truth about an industry that serves special interest groups far better than it serves its patients. A survival guide for anyone entering the healthcare system, this timely work helps consumers better research provider competency; ask the right questions to evaluate potential treatment options; and communicate the information that will help yield the right treatment decisions. Several studies have shown patients today have only about a 50 percent chance of getting the generally accepted best treatment for their conditions. This book helps consumers increase these odds with step-by-step directions on how to interact more productively with their doctors and become true partners in making what may be the most crucial decisions of their lives.

Offers a science-based, patient-centered program designed to improve overall health, prevent disease, increase energy, enhance mood, diminish stress, and provide better overall health for people of all ages.

Myth, a symbolic narrative, usually of unknown origin and at least partly traditional, that ostensibly relates actual events and that is especially associated with religious belief. While I understand, these myths have been prevalent for generations; They gave hope to our friends and family members. But, we have to understand that more than 100 years back, knowledge was very limited. We need to weigh both risks and benefits equally whenever we try to treat any medical conditions by following old myths. We did not have choices for the last several generations, but now we do have choices.

Myth, a symbolic narrative, usually of unknown origin and at least partly traditional, that ostensibly relates actual events and that is especially associated with religious belief. While I understand, these myths have been prevalent for generations; They gave hope to our friends and family members. But, we have to understand that more than 100 years back, knowledge was very limited. We need to weigh both risks and benefits equally whenever we try to treat any medical conditions by following old myths. We did not have choices for the last several generations, but now we do have choices.

Modern Myths and Medical Consumerism is concerned with the loss of a sense of limit in technological medicine today, and the way in which the denial of death leads to an uncontrollable, consumeristic multiplication of needs. Taking its starting point from C. G. Jung’s analytical psychology, the book gives a symbolic interpretation based on archetypal, philosophical and socio-psychoanalytic ideas developed through the author’s personal experience, moving from the medical to the psychoanalytical paradigm. Lanfranchi depicts ideal sources of medicine, based on archetypal material drawn from Greek myth, and discusses the progressive steps of the doctor’s consciousness’ evolution up to contemporary times. Critiquing current medicine and its ‘modern myths’, the book suggests the prevailing model of economic development is unsustainable, and provides prospects of a more contained ecological medicine and an ethical approach that will allow readers to reflect and move towards a more qualified attitude to mortality. The book meets the need to transform medicine into a critical domain of human experience, capable of providing essential services consistent with the naturalness of death and environmental sustainability. As such, it will be vital reading to academics in the fields of psychotherapy, analytical psychology, psychiatry and medicine, and those with a philosophical or sociological background.

The history of medicine in non-European countries has often been characterized by the study of their native "traditional" medicine, such as (Galenico-)Islamic medicine, and Ayurvedic or Chinese medicine. Modern medicine in these countries, on the other hand, has usually been viewed as a Western corpus of knowledge and institution, juxtaposing or replacing the native medicine but without any organic relation with the local context. By discarding categories like Islamic, Indian, or Chinese medicine as the myths invented by modern (Western) historiography in the aftermath of the colonial and post colonial periods, the book proposes to bridge the gap between Western and 'non-Western' medicines, opening a new perspective in medical historiography in which 'modern medicine' becomes an integral part of the history of medicine in non-European countries. Through essays and case studies of medical modernization, this volume particularly calls into question the categorization of ‘Western’ and ‘non-Western’ medicine and challenges the idea that modern medicine could only be developed in its Western birthplace and then imported to and practised as such to the rest of the world. Against the concept of a ‘project’ of modernization at the heart of the history of modern medicine in non-Western countries, the chapters of this book describe ‘processes’ of medical development by highlighting the active involvement of local elements. The book’s emphasis is thus on the ‘modernization’ or ‘construction’ of modern medicine rather that on the diffusion of ‘modern medicine’ as an ontological entity beyond the West.

With a focus on reframing the management and organization of healthcare, this thoughtful resource claims that care, cure, control, and community have to work together, within healthcare institutions and across them, to deliver quantity, quality, and equality simultaneously. --

Stop right there! It’s time to take a break from the world you think you know and to step through into another one. These five stories offer a guided tour of new possibilities and different places. They rely on magic, science, and sleight of hand, and will betray your trust at every opportunity. But just because they are fantastic, doesn’t mean they aren’t real (somewhere). You can stay tucked away on a safe perch and let this book unveil the genre-bending consequences of rather minor changes to a world that might be the one you live in, or might not; you can follow the way events unravel when cause and effect aren’t quite so boringly predictable. Stories of ideas are, however, always dangerous. Consider yourself warned. This collection includes: —Is That Asking Too Much? —Next Time, I’ll Shoot Him —Hitchhikers —The Last Duck —What Goes Up...

How would you know when the last of anything is gone? Everything has an expiration date, a point that it simply is no more. Most of the time we aren’t even aware we’ve reached that time until we look around and see that our era has ended, our favorite ice cream flavor is no longer made, we can’t get a telephone that doesn’t connect to the internet, or the last duck is gone. This is a story about two people, quite like us, living in another time, a difficult time, possibly in another place, but one that looks a lot like this one might become not far down the road of time.

First published in 1986, Economic Myths and the Mythology of Economics is a polemical study in which the author focuses on the popular myths and misconceptions that colour our understanding of economic issues. Professor Mishan, the internationally recognised economist and expert in the field of resource allocation and cost benefit analysis, undermines the idea that economics is a science. But such are popular myths, he argues, that governments employ battalions of economists in their ongoing attempts to promote economic growth, efficiency and employment. The author challenges the validity and measurement of such concepts as economic efficiency and GNP, and questions the assumption that free competitive markets can operate effectively in a rapidly changing, high-technology society. Professor Mishan foresees in his study further expansion as an unavoidable consequence of continued innovation, while revealing the interconnecting processes by which innovative activity, designed to raise living standards, has begun to erode the moral and psychological foundations of a viable and libertarian society.