Medical

This book is intended for four intersecting groups of readers. If you are a philosopher, closet or sanctioned, then you cannot ponder the nature of being without due consideration for vision, and cannot contemplate the role of seeing in our lives without listening to the stories of those who are blind. The tales within this text are particularly contemporaneous because they are contextualized by the cyber-phenomena of online learning. This segues to the second group of readers, as the described empirical research was originally intended to bring greater depth and breadth of understanding to the field of educational technology, particularly as it intersects with disability studies. There is a paucity of published literature that has inquired into disabled online learners, and this research study responds to that call. Third, this book may be used as a textbook on approaches to interpretive empirical research. It is as close as one may come to a recipe, walking students through a specific example.

Because it is situated in actual empirical research, the intention was that it avoid the trap of being prescriptive or formulaic. Finally, the text is intended for readers interested in the field of blindness. The text reviews some of the seminal and contemporary research on blindness, and then presents an elaborated example of what we can and should expect to emerge in the knowledge production industry, changing what it means to be blind.

Healthcare and technology are at a convergence point where significant changes are poised to take place. The vast and complex requirements of medical record keeping, coupled with stringent patient privacy laws, create an incredibly unwieldy maze of health data needs. While the past decade has seen giant leaps in AI, machine learning, wearable technologies, and data mining capacities that have enabled quantities of data to be accumulated, processed, and shared around the globe. Transforming Healthcare with Big Data and AI examines the crossroads of these two fields and looks to the future of leveraging advanced technologies and developing data ecosystems to the healthcare field.

This book is the product of the Transforming Healthcare with Data conference, held at the University of Southern California. Many speakers and digital healthcare industry leaders contributed multidisciplinary expertise to chapters in this work. Authors’ backgrounds range from data scientists, healthcare experts, university professors, and digital healthcare entrepreneurs. If you have an understanding of data technologies and are interested in the future of Big Data and A.I. in healthcare, this book will provide a wealth of insights into the new landscape of healthcare.

Transformative Learning in Healthcare and Helping Professions Education: Building Resilient Professional Identities is a co-edited book (Carter, Boden, and Peno) with invited chapters from educators who share our passion for learning in healthcare and the helping professions. The purpose of the book is to introduce professional learners (students, residents, and others in professional training) to transformative learning for building resilient professional identities amid practice environments that include widespread burnout and compassion fatigue. With a diverse set of authors engaged in clinical and educational practice in academic medicine, nursing, dentistry, physical therapy, mental health counseling, science education, psychology, social work, and inter-professional collaborative practice, we offer strategies for building resilience throughout the years of professional training and into professional practice. We do so through the experiences of authors involved in healthcare and the helping professions to illustrate how some are coping with the challenges of burnout and compassion fatigue through learning that can be transformative.

This book explores the nature of professional identity formation by examining ways that professionals in training can thrive amid the challenges of today’s stressful practice environments. First-hand stories of resilience illustrate how learners, as well as educators in these professions, are addressing adversity, career decision-making, service to the underserved, and the self-care needed to provide excellent care for others. The prominence of transformative learning within adult learning theory is illustrated for its potential to revise the meaning that learners make of their experiences and open up new possibilities for renewed vitality in professional education and practice environments.

The book has two primary audiences: professional learners in healthcare and helping professions education, and their educators who are often professional practitioners themselves. These educators have a significant role in influencing the next generation of professionals by serving as mentors, role models, and teachers. The importance of fostering learning that is transformative has never been more important than it is today for those who will work in these demanding professions. We invite readers to discover experiences and strategies for achieving individual wellbeing, as well as opportunities for building a culture within professional education and practice settings that will foster resilience.

Healthcare and technology are at a convergence point where significant changes are poised to take place. The vast and complex requirements of medical record keeping, coupled with stringent patient privacy laws, create an incredibly unwieldy maze of health data needs. While the past decade has seen giant leaps in AI, machine learning, wearable technologies, and data mining capacities that have enabled quantities of data to be accumulated, processed, and shared around the globe. Transforming Healthcare with Big Data and AI examines the crossroads of these two fields and looks to the future of leveraging advanced technologies and developing data ecosystems to the healthcare field.

This book is the product of the Transforming Healthcare with Data conference, held at the University of Southern California. Many speakers and digital healthcare industry leaders contributed multidisciplinary expertise to chapters in this work. Authors’ backgrounds range from data scientists, healthcare experts, university professors, and digital healthcare entrepreneurs. If you have an understanding of data technologies and are interested in the future of Big Data and A.I. in healthcare, this book will provide a wealth of insights into the new landscape of healthcare.

Voices of Oncology is a groundbreaking exploration of the evolving landscape in cancer treatment development. Beyond scientific advancements, the field is being reshaped by societal and cultural forces that are redefining what it takes to bring new therapies to patients.

Through exclusive interviews with leading experts from across oncology, this book captures the complexity of a multidisciplinary approach. Each chapter highlights the challenges and breakthroughs that arise from collaboration between pharmaceutical leaders, academic researchers, patient advocates, and healthcare innovators. Together, these voices underscore a powerful message: only by breaking down silos and sharing insights can we accelerate progress and ultimately, conquer cancer.

To go beyond the book and be a voice in a dynamic collaboration of stakeholders in oncology today, we invite you to join the Oncology Voice Network (OVN), an online community for those committed to transforming oncology through shared knowledge and collective action.

An inside look at how patients living with terminal illness created one of the country’s first medical marijuana collectives

Marijuana as medicine has been a politically charged topic in this country for more than three decades. Despite overwhelming public support and growing scientific evidence of its therapeutic effects (relief of the nausea caused by chemotherapy for cancer and AIDS, control over seizures or spasticity caused by epilepsy or MS, and relief from chronic and acute pain, to name a few), the drug remains illegal under federal law.

In Dying to Get High, noted sociologist Wendy Chapkis and Richard J. Webb investigate one community of seriously-ill patients fighting the federal government for the right to use physician-recommended marijuana. Based in Santa Cruz, California, the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana (WAMM) is a unique patient-caregiver cooperative providing marijuana free of charge to mostly terminally ill members. For a brief period in 2004, it even operated the only legal non-governmental medical marijuana garden in the country, protected by the federal courts against the DEA.

Using as their stage this fascinating profile of one remarkable organization, Chapkis and Webb tackle the broader, complex history of medical marijuana in America. Through compelling interviews with patients, public officials, law enforcement officers and physicians, Chapkis and Webb ask what distinguishes a legitimate patient from an illegitimate pothead, good drugs from bad, medicinal effects from just getting high. Dying to Get High combines abstract argument and the messier terrain of how people actually live, suffer and die, and offers a moving account of what is at stake in ongoing debates over the legalization of medical marijuana.

Winner, 2025 Thomas & Znaniecki Best Book Award, given by the American Sociological Association International Migration Section

Reveals the presence of an informal system of valuable support and care for marginalized migrants

The United States’ health care system not only consists of a formal safety net, but also an informal and disjointed network of organizations that offer basic care to millions of migrants. This “Third Net” provides free or low-cost health care for the undocumented, low-income, and uninsured migrants who are excluded from the formal system. This groundbreaking study sheds light on the existence of the Third Net and its implications for the overall inequalities in the US health care system.

The Third Net is made up of diverse providers with varying levels of service, organizational culture, and mission. These providers operate in unconventional settings, such as mobile clinics on wheels; pop-up clinics in repurposed spaces; and unlicensed, makeshift clinics run by health activists. Despite their unassuming appearances, these clinics are vital resources for marginalized populations that often go unnoticed by the general public, revealing the shortcomings of our formal health care system.

By examining these alternative health care spaces, the authors expose the inequities entrenched in the broader health care system and urge a reevaluation of it entirely in order to address these injustices.

An important analysis of the difference class makes in reproductive health choices

Can you run a marathon, drink coffee, eat fish, or fly on a plane while pregnant? Such questions are just the tip of the iceberg for how most pregnant women’s bodies are managed, surveilled, and scrutinized during pregnancy. The Reproduction of Inequality examines the intense social pressure that expectant and new mothers face when it comes to their health and body-care choices.

Drawing on interviews with dozens of pregnant women and new mothers from poor, middle-class, and mixed-class backgrounds, Katherine Mason paints a vivid picture of the immense weight of expectation that comes with the early stages of motherhood. The women in Mason’s study universally sought to give their children a healthy start in life; however, their chosen approaches varied based on their socio-economic class. Whereas middle-class mothers attempted a complete lifestyle change and absolute devotion to the achievement and maintenance of “the healthy pregnant body,” poorer women made strategic choices about which health goals to prioritize on a limited budget, lacking the economic and cultural capital required to speak and perfectly adhere to the language of “good health.” The unfortunate result is that middle-class mothers are more likely to be seen by others and by themselves as “good” parents, whereas the efforts of working-class mothers are often misread as displaying inadequate concern about their health and that of their child. This in turn contributes to longstanding stereotypes about poor families and communities, and limits their children's chances for upward mobility. The Reproduction of Inequality is a compelling analysis of the impact of class on new mothers’ approaches to health and wellness, and a sobering examination of how inequality shapes mothers’ efforts to maximize their own health and that of their children.

Jim Decker’s gentle storytelling empowers the reader to embrace a greater challenge, as healthcare is at a point of no return in America.

Written for corporate leaders in every field, Jim calmly offers the basics of compassion and servant leadership as a better way. His non-healthcare friends say that the pressures he has experienced in his forty-seven year career are significantly more intense than those in the typical corporate world. Considering the notion “that which does not kill me, only makes me stronger,” he tells the story of his journey.

Immersed in healthcare for five decades, Jim is hearing more frequent complaints from friends and neighbors about how difficult it is to navigate the healthcare maze. Everything from understanding the health insurance quagmire and watching healthcare costs continue to rise, to the impersonal feeling of just being a “number” and being shuffled through the system in assembly line fashion.

Something is wrong.

And the problem, Jim suggests, is that these well-meaning leaders may not realize the damage of an authoritarian style of leadership. Talk to nurses. Talk to long-term employees. They are not happy. They are unfulfilled. Company loyalty is gone.

Exercising good “judgment in administration” is a trait that all good leaders should possess. But Jim asks if that is always the case. He fears that some of the problems the US healthcare system is experiencing today result from poor judgment by key decision-makers.

Me too, he notes. He has been in pressure-filled situations where he felt no escape from brutal management decisions. “Twenty-twenty hindsight would suggest that I should have handled certain situations differently. Hopefully, I learned from those experiences.”

Jim seeks to get the attention of Board leadership as well. The local business leaders serving on boards across America need to ask themselves the same questions. They make decisions without regard to their employee morale and failing loyalty, the vast majority of which have lost respect for their company leadership.

It is time for those in leadership positions to change course before we reach the point of no return. A different focus might be the best remedy for what ails us. Could a healthy dose of compassion, servant leadership, and better judgment be just what the doctor has ordered?

Jim Decker adds that the price we are paying is impacting the healthcare quality in America.

In Unvendor: Innovate Healthcare with a Diverse IT Stack, Dr. Harm Scherpbier challenges the healthcare industry’s reliance on single-vendor IT systems. While single-vendor solutions offer ease of maintenance, they often stifle innovation, hinder agility, and result in costly monopolies. In this timely and thought-provoking book, Dr. Scherpbier argues for a return to diversity in healthcare IT—a “best-of-breed” approach that integrates advanced technologies from multiple vendors to power a more dynamic, competitive, and resilient healthcare ecosystem.

Drawing on decades of experience as a health IT strategist, physician, and CMIO, Dr. Scherpbier explores the history of healthcare IT dominance, its limitations, and the pressing need for change. He outlines actionable steps for organizations to embrace modular, interoperable technologies, enabling faster adoption of AI, machine learning, and patient-centric tools.

Unvendor is a call to action for healthcare leaders—CIOs, CMIOs, CEOs, and CFOs—to create flexible, future-ready IT environments that improve care delivery, clinician satisfaction, and organizational efficiency. Practical, insightful, and forward-looking, this book provides the framework to transform healthcare IT, ensuring organizations can adapt to a rapidly evolving landscape.

It’s Not What You’re Thinking by Dr. Rick van Pelt addresses the deep-rooted crises in healthcare—escalating costs, persistent safety issues, and the overwhelming burnout of caregivers. In this groundbreaking work, van Pelt introduces "Precision Problem Solving," a fresh, no-hypothesis approach that reveals how entrenched problem-solving methods have failed to transform the healthcare landscape. His methodology rejects conventional thinking and instead focuses on addressing conflict to create safe learning conditions, objective observation, and sustained solutions through comprehensive understanding of core functional problems.

With over thirty years of clinical experience, van Pelt outlines practical solutions for navigating the chaotic intricacies of healthcare. For example, he discusses how misaligned approaches to patient safety have hindered progress and why fragmented management systems continue to exacerbate burnout. He also explores the importance of interprofessional collaboration, offering insights into how healthcare systems can foster empowerment and ownership by eliminating conflict and focusing on comprehensive understanding.

This book offers a much-needed alternative for healthcare leaders, professionals, and administrators seeking to enact lasting, transformative change. It provides a methodology along with tools designed for practical implementation in complex environments where the stakes are high. It’s Not What You’re Thinking is essential reading for anyone ready to challenge the status quo and build a more reliable, sustainable system.

Volume II in the Ben cao gang mu series offers a complete translation of chapters 5 through 11, devoted to waters, fires, soils, metals, jades, stones, minerals, and salts.

The Ben cao gang mu is a sixteenth-century Chinese encyclopedia of medical matter and natural history by Li Shizhen (1518–1593). The culmination of a sixteen-hundred-year history of Chinese medical and pharmaceutical literature, it is considered the most important and comprehensive book ever written in the history of Chinese medicine and remains an invaluable resource for researchers and practitioners. This nine-volume series reveals an almost two-millennia-long panorama of wide-ranging observations and sophisticated interpretations, ingenious manipulations, and practical applications of natural substances for the benefit of human health. Paul Unschuld's annotated translation of the Ben cao gang mu, presented here with the original Chinese text, opens a rare window into viewing the people and culture of China's past.

Volume VIII in the Ben cao gang mu series offers a complete translation of chapters 38 through 46, devoted to clothes, utensils, worms, insects, amphibians, animals with scales, and animals with shells.

The Ben cao gang mu is a sixteenth-century Chinese encyclopedia of medical matter and natural history by Li Shizhen (1518–1593). The culmination of a sixteen-hundred-year history of Chinese medical and pharmaceutical literature, it is considered the most important and comprehensive book ever written in the history of Chinese medicine and remains an invaluable resource for researchers and practitioners. This nine-volume series reveals an almost two-millennia-long panorama of wide-ranging observations and sophisticated interpretations, ingenious manipulations, and practical applications of natural substances for the benefit of human health. Paul Unschuld's annotated translation of the Ben cao gang mu, presented here with the original Chinese text, opens a rare window into viewing the people and culture of China's past.

Choosing Unsafe Sex focuses on the ways in which condom refusal and beliefs regarding HIV testing reflect women's hopes for their relationships and their desires to preserve status and self-esteem. Many of the inner-city women who participated in Dr. Sobo's research were seriously involved with one man, and they had heavy emotional and social investments in believing or maintaining that their partners were faithful to them.

Uninvolved women had similarly heavy investments in their abilities to identify or choose potential partners who were HIV-negative. Women did not see themselves as being at risk for HIV infection, and so they saw no need for condoms. But they did recommend that other women, whom they saw as quite likely to be involved with sexually unfaithful men, use them.

In der medizinischen Versorgung der HIV-Infektion wurden große Erfolge erzielt. Dennoch bleiben große Probleme, da nicht nur die Zahl der Erkrankten zunimmt, sondern auch neue Herausforderungen erkennbar werden. Hierzu gehört das Analkarzinom, das bis zu 100-mal häufiger im Vergleich zur HIV-negativen Bevölkerung auftritt.

Marko Schünemann widmet sich in dem vorliegenden Band der Diagnostik von Vorstufen des Analkarzinoms, der analen intraepithelialen Neoplasie. Mit Hilfe einer neuen endoskopischen Methode wird versucht, die anorektale Bildgebung zu optimieren und hierdurch die Effektivität der Karzinomvorsorge für HIV-Infizierte zu verbessern.

Infektionskrankheiten wie AIDS, Tuberkulose oder Malaria gehören zu den Haupttodesursachen weltweit. Sie sind nicht nur verantwortlich für das Leid von Millionen Menschen, sondern auch für Schäden an Wirtschaft und Sozialgefüge.

Die Schriftenreihe Infektiologie versucht, einen Beitrag zur Bekämpfung dieser Krankheiten zu leisten. Ergebnisse der Grundlagenforschung, klinische Anwendungen sowie gesundheitspolitische Bezüge kommen zur Darstellung.

Dieses Buch ist eine Schritt-für-Schritt-Anleitung zur evidenzbasierten Durchführung von Interventionen an der Wirbelsäule. Es unterstützt beim gesamten Vorgehen: von der Anamnese über die Diagnostik bis zur klaren Beschreibung der einzelnen Pathologie und der Injektionstechniken in der Hals-, Brust- und Lendenwirbelsäule sowie am Iliosakralgelenk. Die Techniken werden ausführlich dargestellt mit Durchleuchtungskontrolle und mit Ultraschall.

Beschrieben wird auch der grundlegende Umgang mit dem C-Bogen, Nutzen und Risiko der notwendigen Medikamente sowie Risiken und Komplikationen und das Notfallmanagement. Schwerpunkt des Buches ist die farblich hervorgehobene Schritt-für-Schritt Anleitung, welche sich direkt im Kurs und im Alltag umsetzen lässt.

In der zweiten Auflage wurden alle Kapitel überarbeitet, neue Evidenzen wurden eingefügt und sehr viele Abbildungen wurden verbessert. Es gibt nun einen eigenen Teil zu Injektionen mit Ultraschall sowie ein Kapitel zu Risiken und Komplikationen und ein Kapitel über Radiofrequenzdenervationen.

Komplikationen und die daraus oftmals resultierenden Vorwürfe eines Behandlungsfehlers sind unbestreitbar Teil des unfallchirurgischen Alltags. Umso wichtiger ist es, diese schnell zu erkennen und optimal zu behandeln, um sekundäre Schäden zu minimieren.

Zugeschnitten auf die speziellen Herausforderungen der Unfallchirurgie im Rahmen des Komplikationsmanagements bietet dieses Buch Antworten auf häufige Fragen: Was ist überhaupt eine Komplikation, was ein Behandlungsfehler? Wie kläre ich meine Patienten optimal auf? Was muss ich tun, wenn ein Haftungsfall eingetreten ist, wie kann ich mich absichern? Im speziellen Teil werden die relevanten Komplikationen anhand von zahlreichen Fallbeispielen beschrieben – von der falschen Indikation und missverstandenen Aufklärung über verbliebene Fremdkörper, Fehlstellungen oder übersehenen Frakturen bis hin zu Wundinfekten und Nachbetreuung – jeweils mit medizinischer Einschätzung und haftungsrechtlicher Bewertung. Im Fokus sind konkrete Entscheidungshilfen und praktische Anleitungen, die direkt im Alltag umgesetzt werden können.

Für eine reproduzierbare Schnittführung und sichere Interpretation der Befunde bei der Sonografie des Bewegungsapparates sind standardisierte Schnittebenenen unerlässlich. Doch wo genau setze ich den Schallkopf? Wie sieht ein Normalbefund in der jeweiligen Schnittebene aus, und wie stellt sich mein Befund dar? Dieses Buch bietet praktische Hilfestellung bei der Darstellung der Standardebenen, die von der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Ultraschall in der Medizin (DEGUM) empfohlen werden. Zu jedem Standardschnitt wird gezeigt, wo genau abgetastet und der Schallkopf angesetzt werden sollte. Repräsentative sonografische Schnittbilder helfen bei der Einschätzung des eigenen Befundes. Magnetresonanztomografische Vergleichsbilder runden die Darstellung ab.

Rückenschmerzen nachhaltig behandeln? Dieses Buch beschreibt anwendungsorientiert die multimodale Therapie und stellt ausführlich die interdisziplinäre Diagnostik und Therapie von Menschen mit Rückenschmerzen anhand zahlreicher Beispiele aus dem klinischen Behandlungsalltag vor. Die Forderung nach Interdisziplinarität ist nicht neu, ihre Umsetzung im Behandlungsalltag aber bisher kaum konkret beschrieben. Schwerpunkte und Vorgehen der unterschiedlichen Disziplinen - Medizin, Physiotherapie, Psychologie und Sportwissenschaft - innerhalb einer Tagesklinik werden detailliert dargestellt. Das Hauptaugenmerk liegt auf der fachübergreifenden Kommunikation und der Gestaltung des auf Aktivierung und Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe ausgerichteten Behandlungsansatzes. Die Autoren, sämtlich Therapeuten mit langjähriger praktischer Erfahrung, skizzieren Möglichkeiten zur Vernetzung der Module als den wesentlichen Qualitätssprung der interdisziplinären Schmerztherapie. Das gibt, auch nicht in einem Team arbeitenden Kollegen, Anregungen, für andere Disziplinen „mitzudenken" und den eigenen Behandlungsansatz weiterzuentwickeln.

In diesem Buch wird erstmals die multimodale interdisziplinäre Komplexbehandlung der ANOA (Arbeitsgemeinschaft nicht operativer orthopädischer manualmedizinischer Akutkliniken) umfassend dargestellt. In den ANOA-Kliniken arbeitet ein interdisziplinäres Ärzte-, Psychologen- und Therapeutenteam, um Schmerzerkrankungen des Bewegungssystems multimodal zu diagnostizieren und zu behandeln. Das Therapiekonzept ist ausgerichtet auf die Behandlung akuter Schmerzen und Funktionsstörungen und dem Aufbau medizinischer, psychologischer und sozialer Hilfen zur Bewältigung der Erkrankung und zur Verbesserung der Lebensqualität.

Im Zentrum des Buches stehen die Diagnostik (morphologisch, funktionell und psychologisch) sowie die Therapie, für die eigene Behandlungspfade entwickelt wurden. Die Autoren präsentieren strukturelle Voraussetzungen, Team und Teamwork, Behandlungsqualität und Abrechnung und stellen die bisherige wissenschaftliche Datenlage vor.

Dieses Fachbuch enthält die Grundlagen für die Erstellung von Kausalitätsgutachten auf dem Gebiet der Erkrankungen, Verletzungen und Überlastungsschäden am Bewegungsapparat. Es erscheint in Form von mehreren eigenständigen Bänden. Dieser Band behandelt die Bereiche Femoropatellargelenk, Wertigkeit der histopathologischen Diagnostik, Neurologie, Psychiatrie.

Neu ist der interdisziplinäre Ansatz mit der Integration von Anatomie, Pathogenese, Histopathologie, Radiologie und Klinik. Besonderer Wert wird auf die Begründung und Defi nition von einheitlichen und gleichzeitig verständlichen Bezeichnungen gelegt.

What does it mean to oppose AIDS, to be at odds with AIDS? What kind of rupture with history does AIDS represent? How does AIDS and what is said about AIDS relate to gay identity? How does AIDS relate to thinking and acting, particularly deconstructive thinking? The author confronts these questions from a broad philosophical background that ranges from Kant, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and Heidegger to contemporary thought concerning gay activism and AIDS research, all brought together in an effort to find a philosophical language capable of doing justice to the singularity of lived experience in the shadow of AIDS.

In examining what AIDS reveals about the conditions of existence, García Düttmann develops the idea of the “dis-unity” or “at-odds-ness” of existence, of the “non-belonging” that characterizes the marginalized, outcast, or abandoned, and exposes human existence itself. He analyzes what AIDS reveals about the character of history through two intertwined issues. First, he examines arguments bearing on the epochal significance of AIDS, the idea that AIDS reveals something uniquely characteristic of our time, hence that the epidemic marks a historical caesura. Second, he develops a theory of historical witnessing suggesting that the phenomena of historical event and bearing witness are not at all separate, but instead are co-originary, inhering in the same complex.

Volume VIII in the Ben cao gang mu series offers a complete translation of chapters 38 through 46, devoted to clothes, utensils, worms, insects, amphibians, animals with scales, and animals with shells.

The Ben cao gang mu is a sixteenth-century Chinese encyclopedia of medical matter and natural history by Li Shizhen (1518–1593). The culmination of a sixteen-hundred-year history of Chinese medical and pharmaceutical literature, it is considered the most important and comprehensive book ever written in the history of Chinese medicine and remains an invaluable resource for researchers and practitioners. This nine-volume series reveals an almost two-millennia-long panorama of wide-ranging observations and sophisticated interpretations, ingenious manipulations, and practical applications of natural substances for the benefit of human health. Paul Unschuld's annotated translation of the Ben cao gang mu, presented here with the original Chinese text, opens a rare window into viewing the people and culture of China's past.