Book Club

Over the past fifty years, more than three hundred infectious diseases have either newly emerged or reemerged, appearing in territories where they’ve never been seen before. Ninety percent of epidemiologists expect that one of them will cause a deadly pandemic sometime in the next two generations. But which one, and how?

In Pandemic: Tracking Contagions, from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond, prizewinning journalist Sonia Shah interweaves history, original reportage, and personal narrative to explore the origins of contagions, drawing parallels between cholera, one of history’s most deadly and disruptive pandemic-causing pathogens, and the new diseases that stalk humankind today.

On this episode of Everyday Family Medicine, host Dr. Jennifer Caudle welcomes Dr. Antonio J. Webb to discuss his book, Overcoming the Odds: From the War on the Streets of Louisiana to the War on Terrorism in Iraq. Dr. Webb is an orthopedic surgeon in residency at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, Texas. He is also a motivational speaker and mentors underprivileged middle and high school students interested in medical careers.

In medical school, Matt McCarthy dreamed of being a different kind of doctor—the sort of mythical, unflappable physician who could reach unreachable patients. But when a new admission to the critical care unit almost died his first night on call, he found himself scrambling. Visions of mastery quickly gave way to hopes of simply surviving hospital life, where confidence was hard to come by and no amount of med school training could dispel the terror of facing actual patients.

In his memoir, The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly, Dr. McCarthy offers a window on to hospital life that dispenses with sanctimony and self-seriousness while emphasizing the black-comic paradox of becoming a doctor: How do you learn to save lives in a job where there is no practice?

Dr. Thomas Wright joins Dr. Patricia Sulak, renowned OB/GYN and author of Should I Fire My Doctor? Eleven Essential Elements to Living Well Aware, to discuss the key principles outlined in her book. Should I Fire My Doctor details the self-induced nature of common health problems today and how patients can take ownership of these issues by applying essential elements of health and happiness, with the potential to dramatically decrease depression, disability and death. Additionally, the potential for this approach to reduce the need for office visits, prescription medications and surgeries has made it a popular read for clinicians as well.

Thought of as the seat of our soul, then as a mysteriously animated object, the heart is still more a mystery than it is understood. Rob Dunn, evolutionary biologist and author of The Man Who Touched His Own Heart, tells the raucous, gory, mesmerizing story of the heart, from the first "explorers" who dug up cadavers and plumbed their hearts' chambers, through the first heart surgeries-which had to be completed in three minutes before death arrived-to heart transplants and the latest medical efforts to prolong our hearts' lives, almost defying nature in the process.

A traumatic brain injury is a life-changing event, affecting an individual’s lifestyle, ability to work, relationships―even personality. In The Traumatized Brain: a Family Guide to Understanding Mood, Memory, and Behavior after Brain Injury, co-author and neuropsychiatrist Dr. Sandeep Vaishnavi explains how traumatic brain injury, whether mild, moderate, or severe, affects the brain. He describes how emotional symptoms such as depression, anxiety, mania, and apathy can be treated; how behavioral symptoms such as psychosis, aggression, impulsivity, and sleep disturbances can be addressed; and how cognitive functions like attention, memory, executive functioning, and language can be improved.

No substance on earth is as hotly debated as marijuana. Opponents claim it’s dangerous, addictive, carcinogenic, and a gateway to serious drug abuse. Conversely, fans claim it as a wonder drug, treating cancer, anorexia, AIDS, chronic pain, glaucoma, arthritis, migraines, PTSD, and insomnia. In Stoned: A Doctor's Case for Medical Marijuana, palliative care physician Dr. David Casarett investigates with researchers, doctors, and patients around the globe how marijuana works—and doesn’t—in the real world. Dr. John Russell hosts a discussion with Dr. Cararett on this fascinating work.

Wealth, or the appearance thereof, is often portrayed in American popular culture not by the allocation of one's assets, but rather the number of assets. As such, the most common mechanism by which healthily employed Americans get into financial trouble is, simply, from owning "too much stuff." Health care professionals, especially those in higher income positions, are particularly susceptible to this problem after experiencing delayed financial gratification for so many years in training. What is the seasoned clinician in financial crisis to do?

Dr. John Russell welcomes James Hemphill, Chief Investment Strategist and Managing Director of TGS Financial Advisors, and author of Changing Outcomes: A Financial Recovery Strategy for Peak-Career Physicians. Mr. Hemphill discusses strategies for making significant changes to a troubled financial portfolio, from pushing savings to making assets more functional and productive.

Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter was an audacious medical innovator who pioneered the use of ether as anesthesia, the sterilization of surgical tools, and a compassion-based vision for helping the severely deformed, which clashed spectacularly with the sentiments of his time in the mid 19th century. Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz, author of Dr. Mütter’s Marvels, interweaves an eye-opening portrait of nineteenth-century medicine with the riveting biography of a man once described as the "P. T. Barnum of the surgery room."

Not too long ago, there was no coming back from death. But now, with revolutionary medical advances, death has taken on the appearance at times of just another serious complication. In Shocked, author Dr. David Casarett chronicles his exploration of the cutting edge of resuscitation and reveals just how far science has come. Dr. John Russell hosts.