"Kroll-Smith and Floyd have, with both clarity and sensitivity, provided considerable insight into an important arena of contemporary experience."
--"American Journal of Sociology"

"Elegantly written. . . . the book is built around the narratives of multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) sufferers themselves. . . . Due to its relevant subject matter, its interdisciplinary approach, its readability, and its interesting theoretical arguments, "Bodies in Protest" should be appealing to a wide audience."
--"Organization and Environment"

"This engagingly written and thought-provoking book provides one of the first sustained sociological analyses of a baffling, controversial, and spectacular medical condition."
--"Social Forces"

Gulf War Syndrome: Is It a Real Disease? asks a recent headline in the "New York Times," This question--are certain diseases real?--lies at the heart of a simmering controversy in the United States, a debate that has raged, in different contexts, for centuries. In the early nineteenth century, the air of European cities, polluted by open sewers and industrial waste, was generally thought to be the source of infection and disease. Thus the term miasma--literally deathlike air--came into popular use, only to be later dismissed as medically unsound by Louis Pasteur.

While controversy has long swirled in the United States around such illnesses as chronic fatigue syndrome and Epstein-Barr virus, no disorder has been more aggressively contested than environmental illness, a disease whose symptoms are distinguished by an extreme, debilitating reaction to a seemingly ordinary environment. The environmentally ill range from those who have adverse reactionsto strong perfumes or colognes to others who are so sensitive to chemicals of any kind that they must retreat entirely from the modern world.

"Bodies in Protest" does not seek to answer the question of whether or not chemical sensitivity is physiological or psychological, rather, it reveals how ordinary people borrow the expert language of medicine to construct lay accounts of their misery. The environmentally ill are not only explaining their bodies to themselves, however, they are also influencing public policies and laws to accommodate the existence of these mysterious illnesses. They have created literally a new body that professional medicine refuses to acknowledge and one that is becoming a popular model for rethinking conventional boundaries between the safe and the dangerous.

Having interviewed dozens of the environmentally ill, the authors here recount how these people come to acknowledge and define their disease, and themselves, in a suddenly unlivable world that often stigmatizes them as psychologically unstable. "Bodies in Protest" is the dramatic story of human bodies that no longer behave in a manner modern medicine can predict and control.

IT in Pharmacy: An Integrated Approach aims to describe and discuss the major areas of pharmacy IT innovation (e-prescribing, drug databases, electronic patient records, clinical decision support, pharmacy management systems, robots and automation etc) from a systems and a professional perspective. It will also consider how the areas of pharmacy IT link together and can be used to enable and develop pharmacy professional practice. The book will examine pharmacy IT from an international perspective, taking into account all parts of the world where IT systems are used in pharmacy practice - namely - North America, the UK, Western Europe and Australia - and will compare pharmacy IT in the different regions. This book is from the author of Principles of Electronic Prescribing (Springer, 2008)

Cancer is a chronic life-threatening disease that requires a comprehensive approach, including health promotion, prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, and palliation. Because primary care physicians are critically important to the implementation of cancer control strategies, we have devoted two issues of Primary Care to keeping primary care physicians informed about the most recent developments in cancer treatment and prevention. Part II focuses on diagnosis, management of cancer survivors, and palliative care.

Medical Professionals: Conflicts and Quandaries in Medical Practice offers a fresh approach to understanding the role-related conflicts and quandaries that pervade contemporary medical practice. While a focus on professional conflicts is not new in the literature, what is missing is a volume that delves into medical professionals' own experience of the conflicts and quandaries they face, often as a result of inhabiting multiple roles. The volume explores the ways in which these conflicts and quandaries are exacerbated by broader societal forces, including changing scientific and technological paradigms, commercialization, and strengthened consumer movements, which simultaneously expand the scope of roles and responsibilities that medical professionals are expected to fulfill, and make it more difficult to do so. Several empirical chapters analyze data from qualitative interview studies with clinicians and other stakeholders. The studies highlight the burdens on clinicians who are expected to make informed and justified judgments and decisions in the midst of competing pressures; authors describe the methods that clinicians use to address the associated tensions within specific contexts. Two conceptual chapters follow and offer some innovative ways to think about the challenges facing medical professionals as they strive to make sense of the changing landscape within healthcare. The first reflects on the challenges to clinical practice in the midst of shifting and often competing definitions of disease and associated ideologies of care. The second reflects more broadly on the utility of value pluralism as a framework for conceptualizing and working through moral and professional quandaries. The book concludes with a chapter containing suggestions for how members of the medical profession might reframe their thinking about their roles, responsibilities, and decision-making in the midst of inevitable quandaries such as those presented here. This book will be of vital reading for academics, researchers, educators, postgraduate students, and interested health care practitioners and administrators.

According to social psychologist A. Daniel Yarmey, police officers find the nature of their work necessitates that they behave to some extent like applied psychologists. Many police officers, of course, do not have any special training in this or any allied field, nor do they have an understanding of what cognitive or social psychology might be able to tell them about the behavior of those with whom they are likely to deal in their daily work. Similarly, psychologists are habitually asked by the courts to present research regarding eyewitness testimony, forensic evidence, and competency to stand trial, yet psychologists frequently lack any real awareness of policing or of police officers.

"Understanding Police and Police Work," the first systematic an comprehensive review of the psychology of police and their work, focuses on the psychological basis of police officers' interactions with society. It shows how psychology and other social sciences can contribute to an understanding of police behavior as well as the behavior of citizens and other professionals with whom the police are involved.

From exotic spa treatments to euthanasia, this book examines the background and social context of medical tourism-the practice of traveling for health care. This work also documents how this industry is reshaping the face of medicine worldwide for individuals, local communities, and national health care systems. Medical Tourism: A Reference Handbook provides an accessible overview of the state of medical tourism, written from a balanced, unbiased perspective. The authors provide relevant social context for this controversial topic, discussing the state of extremely limited research data on medical tourism; the ethical issues involved, such as traveling to have a black-market organ transplanted; and the significant impact of medical tourism on health care systems-that of the United States, and those of the destination countries. The book highlights many contemporary problems, controversies, and implications of medical tourism both for individuals and health care systems, and presents thought-provoking potential solutions. The topic of medical tourism is also addressed against the backdrop of current healthcare reforms in the United States. Readers can reference a wealth of additional material on medical tourism, ranging from original documents to extensive directories of selected organizations and resources. A timeline of important historical and contemporary events in history of medical tourism An extensive bibliography to assist readers toward additional resources for further research

Nursing home reform, Professor Farmer asserts, calls for increased emphasis upon issues related to life rather than care. Organizational climate, which reflects the nursing home's unique position to impact life issues, provides a conceptual framework for effective interventions, evaluations, and ultimately meaningful reform.

The general atmosphere of most nursing homes remains overwhelmingly negative in spite of those few homes that are credited with excellence. Professor Farmer believes that the concept of organizational climate holds promise for better understanding the complexities and impact of atmosphere in any one nursing home. At the same time, organizational climate as a concept is poorly understood. There is a need to rethink the concept and return to the original notion of weather as its metaphor. Farmer attempts this in her case study by describing organizational climate where it can best be captured.

Practitioners of long-term care, from the fields of administration, geronotology, nursing, nutrition, policy makers, occupational and physical therapy, social work, and therapeutic recreation will find the insights of this study of great value, as will graduate students, scholars, and others concerned with organizational studies and issues in gerontology.

Gabriel of Urantia asked the question, in the beginning of his struggle with dialysis, "God, why is this happening to me?" Throughout his 8-month dialysis experience, 3 days a week, 4 hours a day, being tied down to a chair while his blood flowed from his body through a machine and back, he realizes-from the people he meets also on dialysis and in the hospitals after post-kidney-transplant-that very bad things happen to very good people. He met young and old alike, tied down to the machines just like he was, and the young people were the hardest for him to resolve in his mind with God and also to try to give them hope. As a minister, he felt obligated to do so. Being a Pastor of a church (Global Community Communications Alliance-a very social, environmental, and spiritual activist church), he knew that bad things happened to good people who try to change the world. But this disease is personal, between him and God you might say. So he had to discover for himself why God allowed this to happen to him and to the other very good people he met with various traumatic illnesses in the hospitals and dialysis centers. Gabriel of Urantia tries to explain how he felt along the path, from the beginning to the receiving of his new kidney from his 22-year-old daughter and gaining the hope and health to continue not only his spiritual work, but his work as a musician, guitar player, and singer (in which he was planning a tour around the country with his 11-piece Bright & Morning Star Band), while now taking immunosuppressant drugs to keep him alive. He had all the fears that a new transplant patient has. How long will the kidney last? What other affects do these drugs have on my body? He writes about his experience with the medical world, the services he experienced from both very qualified people and those not so qualified (experienced and inexperienced care givers), as well as the bureaucracy of the medical field and insurance companies (both private and governmental). He realized that often in the medical field, the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing and the patient suffered the results. Beyond that, Gabriel of Urantia tries to give hope to people with life-threatening illnesses by sharing his faith in the Creator to all who may read his book. A must-read for anyone on dialysis or with any life-threatening illness, from a writer who went through this and can identify with what they are going through and give them hope through this trauma in their lives.

Cancer is a chronic life-threatening disease that requires a comprehensive approach, including health promotion, prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, and palliation. Because primary care physicians are critically important to the implementation of cancer control strategies, we have devoted two issues of Primary Care to keeping primary care physicians informed about the most recent developments in cancer treatment and prevention. Part I focuses on identifying cancer risk factors and on screening and prevention for specific cancers such as breast, cervical, colon, and prostate cancer.

Family doctors, pediatricians and other professionals who deal with children are regularly consulted because of febrile children. During the past few years remarkable advances on this subject of fever have been made. Among others, this book covers: - Different types of fever with possible complications, - Hyperthermia and their management, - Management of fever with guidelines on antipyretics and their side effects, - Complimentary medicine and fever, - Differential diagnosis of fever, with problem-setting and solving as a case presentation. This reader-friendly reference on the disorders of body temperature in children covers the entire spectrum of subjects related to fever. It gives an overview of the best treatment options in order to achieve the best results.

Each year more people die in health care accidents than in road accidents. Increasingly complex medical treatments and overstretched health systems create more opportunities for things to go wrong, and they do. Patient safety is now a major regulatory issue around the world, and Australia has been at its leading edge. Self-regulation by professional and industry groups is now widely regarded as insufficient, and government is stepping in.In Patient Safety First eading experts survey the governance of clinical care. Framed within a theory of responsive regulation, core regulatory approaches to patient safety are analysed for their effectiveness, including information systems, corporate and public institution governance models, the design of safe systems,the role of medical boards, open disclosure and public inquiries. Patient Safety First includes chapters by Bruce Barraclough, John Braithwaite, Stephen Duckett and Ian Freckleton SC. It is essential reading for all medical and legal professionals working in patient safety as well as readers in public health, health policy and governance.

Designed for easy reference, this concise manual provides hospital board members and executives with practical guidance on how to become actively engaged in the transformation of their organization. It focuses on how the healthcare industry as a whole is transforming and stresses the importance of having board members who are knowledgeable and skilled enough to provide leadership during this time of great opportunity. This manual is ideal for orienting new board members and for providing more experienced members with insight on key issues. It supplies a list of questions to ask stakeholders that will facilitate engagement and ultimately encourage participation. Each of the chapters is organized around action steps referred to as Top Healthcare Transformers. These are designed to disseminate best practices, build organizational quality, establish transparency, and develop the culture and leadership needed to facilitate change that is intelligent and progressive. Each of those 10 chapters includes - The Problem: A brief, quantitative look at the problem The Transformer: What will transform and make healthcare different Best Practices: Examples of current best practices indicative of the transformer Board Questions: Questions every board member should consider asking and every executive should be prepared to answer A concluding chapter provides the overall governance engagement checklist-the things to do to make certain that board members and senior colleagues are engaged and prepared to lead your organization's transformation. Includes a foreword by John R. Combes, MD, President and Chief Operating Officer, Center for Healthcare Governance

This volume recognizes and addresses the health care issues of prisoners, to establish best practices and to learn about approaches to these challenges from around the world. It presents new evidence on several emerging and classical prison health issues. The first goal of this volume is to address emerging issues related to health in prison. Second, it presents the most recent research-based evidence and translates it to the practice. The third goal, is that it allows for sufficient diversity while also incorporating updates of some important already recognized prison health. The volume discusses prisons and the life and well-being of prisoners and staff, after growing problems as drug misuse (incl. tobacco smoking), infectious diseases (HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, STIs and TB), psychiatric problems, inadequate and unhealthy living conditions (incl. nutrition), overcrowding of prisons. These are addressed adequately in order to meet the international requirements of equivalence of health care. The scope of this volume is at the same type specific and diverse enough to cover the interests of a large audience that includes many types of practitioners involved in health-related issues in the field of prison health care, such as psychologists, nurses and prison administration officers responsible for health care, legal professionals and social workers.

This ambitious resource describes innovative intervention programs for treating substance abuse and other mental health problems in the Middle East in the context of larger issues in the region. Deftly combining clinical acumen with in-depth knowledge of sociopolitical currents, contributors present data and analysis on similarities and differences within the region, addiction issues in special populations (youth, mothers, immigrants), and the efficacy of local and international initiatives. New trends in evidence-based responses, including mental health services in war and disaster, are related to the larger goals of promoting peace. To that end, the editors go beyond the concept of shared problems to discuss strategies toward shared solutions, most notably psychological first aid as a healing approach to mediation. Among the topics covered: Drug abuse in the Middle East: promoting mutual interests through resistance and resilience. Toward uniform data collection and monitoring of Israeli and Palestinian adolescent drug use. Substance abusing mothers: toward an understanding of parenting and risk behavior. Immigration, acculturation, and drug use. Psychological first aid: a tool for mitigating conflict in the Middle East. Collaborative approaches to addressing mental health and addiction. For health psychologists, psychiatrists, clinical social workers, and addiction counselors, Mental Health and Addiction Care in the Middle East demonstrates the deep potential for mental health and social issues to be addressed to benefit all communities involved.

Modern medicine and healthcare systems are in crisis. In the last fifty years, medicine has gained deep, scientific insights into the biological basis of health and disease, and while this has led to many successes, it has brought about a dramatic change of medical focus. The patient is seen as a carrier of disease rather than as a person with a unique experience of the effects of disease or illness. This book seeks to correct that, but showing how a person-centred medical consultation might overcome this crisis of modern medicine. The systemic, solution-oriented approach, outlined here in this new title, is good for both the patient and the doctor, and is a counter-model to doctor's consultations that can seem automated and impersonal. In a systemic, solution-oriented consultation, doctor and patient approach the symptom or problem and the patient's solutions. With active listening and a doctor who can ask the right questions, they create a common reality as a starting point for a targeted therapeutic process, which is tailored to the needs and possibilities of the patient. The consultation thus structured involves the patient as a person in all of his being with his own, personal resources. It initiates an individual, comprehensive and efficient healing process. In addition, the doctor feels satisfaction and joy in his work, which contributes significantly to his own well-being. The consultation process is ideally divided into seven steps, which are described in detail and justified with reference to the literature.

In an effort to combat human error in the medical field, medical professionals continue to seek the best practices and technology applications for the diagnosis, treatment, and overall care of their patients. Improving Health Management through Clinical Decision Support Systems brings together a series of chapters focused on the technology, funding, and future plans for improved organization and decision-making through medical informatics. Featuring timely, research-based chapters on topics including, but not limited to, data management, information security, and the benefits of technology-based medicine, this publication is an essential reference source for clinicians, scientists, health economists, policymakers, academicians, researchers, advanced level students, and government officials interested in health information technology.

This revised edition of Arnold Birenbaum's important book brings the work up to date through the end of 1994 and the close of the 103rd Congress. It offers a comprehensive, provocative, and completely new assessment of health care reform with a focus on financing and coverage. A fine primer...on the health care debate (JAMA), the book examines such topics as the changing doctor-patient relationship, the growth of managed care, the rise and decline of hospitals, American business and health benefits, and the uninsured in America. This new edition takes particular heed to the failure of health care reform in 1994. In responding to the first edition, Victor Sidel, M.D., former president of the American Public Health Association, called it, "A wonderfully far-ranging, meticulously documented, insightfully analyzed and remarkably well written challenge to professionals, patients, and community members to work for effective change in a bizarre, expensive, inefficient, and often unresponsive medical care system."

A major objective of this volume is to create and share knowledge about the socio-economic, political and cultural dimensions of climate change. The authors analyze the effects of climate change on the social and environmental determinants of the health and well-being of communities (i.e. poverty, clean air, safe drinking water, food supplies) and on extreme events such as floods and hurricanes. The book covers topics such as the social and political dimensions of the ebola response, inequalities in urban migrant communities, as well as water-related health effects of climate change. The contributors recommend political and social-cultural strategies for mitigate, adapt and prevent the impacts of climate change to human and environmental health. The book will be of interest to scholars and practitioners interested in new methods and tools to reduce risks and to increase health resilience to climate change.

There is little doubt that information technology is a major force in transforming healthcare systems: physicians need to have considerable patient data at hand, even if diagnosis and treatment are relatively straightforward. But data are only as useful as ICT-information communication technology-systems make them. Inefficient handling of data can quickly lead to chaos, and possibly to fatalities. Strategic ICT Planning in Pathology illuminates these problems, as well as their potential solutions, based on a unique body of research from Australia. Focusing on core strategic factors such as laboratory information systems capability and effectiveness, business-IT alignment, strategic spending, research and education, and end-user involvement, the book explains why pathology labs lag behind other hospital departments. Survey and focus group findings pinpoint the importance of Strategic Information System Planning (SISP), and its relationship to quality service delivery and an improved bottom line [ok?]. Among the topics covered: Approaches to SISP and IS effectiveness measurement. The OpenLabs project and pathology practice. Development of a framework for SISP. Focus groups: the view from the hospital laboratory, the private pathology lab, and the experts. Key findings and their implications for strategy, planning, and business outcomes. Future research directions, including reverse SISP. Strategic ICT Planning in Pathology is a go-to resource for healthcare administrators and researchers in healthcare management, health policy, and health services research interested in troubleshooting systems, conducting surveys on IS, or better understanding how quality ICT works.

An "eye-opening" (Kirkus Reviews) and timely exploration of how our food-from where it's grown to how we buy it-is in the midst of a transformation, showing how this is our chance to do better, for us, for our children, and for our planet, from a global expert on consumer behavior and bestselling author of Why We Buy. Our food system is undergoing a total transformation that impacts how we produce, get, and consume our food. Market researcher and bestselling author Paco Underhill-hailed by the San Francisco Chronicle as "a Sherlock Holmes for retailers"-reveals where our eating and drinking lives are heading in his "delectable" (Michael Gross, New York Times bestselling author of 740 Park) book, How We Eat. In this upbeat, hopeful, and witty approach, How We Eat reveals the future of food in surprising ways. Go to the heart of New York City where a popular farmer's market signifies how the city is getting country-fied, or to cool Brooklyn neighborhoods with rooftop farms. Explore the dreaded supermarket parking lot as the hub of innovation for grocery stores' futures, where they can grow their own food and host community events. Learn how marijuana farmers, who have been using artificial light to grow a crop for years, have developed a playbook so mainstream merchants like Walmart and farmers across the world can grow food in an uncertain future. Paco Underhill is the expert behind the most prominent brands, consumer habits, and market trends and the author of multiple highly acclaimed books, including Why We Buy. In How We Eat, he shows how food intersects with every major battle we face today, from political and environmental to economic and racial, and invites you to the market to discover more.

The development of better processes to relay medical information has enhanced the healthcare field. By implementing effective collaborative strategies, this ensures proper quality and instruction for both the patient and medical practitioners. Health Literacy: Breakthroughs in Research and Practice examines the latest advances in providing and helping patients and medical professionals to understand basic health information and the services that are most appropriate. Including innovative studies on interactive health information, health communication, and health education, this multi-volume book is an ideal source for professionals, researchers, academics, practitioners, and students interested in the improvement of health literacy.