Healing is on many peoples’ minds today. In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and a host of other disruptions and disasters many of us feel that we need healing - in our personal lives, for the environment and for our planet. But healing is rarely defined and is not an accepted part of medicine in the West. This book examines the relationship between healing and medicine through the eyes of an academic physician who changed his interests from biomedical research to healing late in his career in medicine. It is based in on his experiences and stories of his encounters with patients, practitioners and others for whom healing has had a particular significance, as well as his rigorous research into the subject. A central theme of the book is that modern medicine needs to be more pluralistic in its approach to health, and accept that spirituality and healing techniques have roles to play alongside scientific medicine, which currently has its base in materialism alone.

Healing is on many peoples’ minds today. In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and a host of other disruptions and disasters many of us feel that we need healing - in our personal lives, for the environment and for our planet. But healing is rarely defined and is not an accepted part of medicine in the West. This book examines the relationship between healing and medicine through the eyes of an academic physician who changed his interests from biomedical research to healing late in his career in medicine. It is based in on his experiences and stories of his encounters with patients, practitioners and others for whom healing has had a particular significance, as well as his rigorous research into the subject. A central theme of the book is that modern medicine needs to be more pluralistic in its approach to health, and accept that spirituality and healing techniques have roles to play alongside scientific medicine, which currently has its base in materialism alone.

While an emphasis on the new is vital to any science, the relevance or importance of new discoveries cannot truly be appreciated without a strong sense of the framework of a discipline, and of the ideas that helped to shape it. With this in mind, the editors of this book have attempted to create a canon of texts that formed the basis of rheumatology. Experts on the diagnosis and management of the various rheumatological conditions have chosen what they consider to be the key papers in their respective domains. Every paper is carefully described and evaluated by its strengths, its weaknesses, and its contribution to the field. Papers have been chosen that define new diseases or treatments, that have changed our whole way of thinking, or that have simply stood the test of time. The editors hope that the papers profiled in this volume will stimulate debate, encourage readers to seek out the original texts, and inspire the writers of the classics of the 21st century.

Most developed countries are struggling to finance first-class health care for everyone in their community, leading to renewed emphasis on appropriate and equitable provision of health care, placing interventions that are both high in volume and expense under the microscope. This book provides readers with an understanding of the key issues that dictate the provision of total hip replacement, one of the most cost-effective procedures available within health care. A highlight of the book is its multinational and multidisciplinary approach presenting perspectives from public health, individual patients and doctors, economists and health care purchasers and managers.

This book sets out to restore the concept of healing to its place within and beyond pain medicine, in chapters authored by keynote speakers to the British Pain Society's Philosophy and Ethics Special Interest Group. Exploring psychological, spiritual and creative approaches, contributors reflect on therapeutic avenues ranging from the deliberate use of the placebo response and the importance of a caring relationship between patient and practitioner, to the use of knitting as a therapeutic tool. Barriers to the flow of healing such as practitioners' careless use of language and cultural attitudes are identified and contrasted with the need to understand the first-person perspectives of people who are suffering. This book will provide hope and inspiration both to people who have become disillusioned with conventional medical approaches to the relief of their pain, and to health professionals sadly aware of the frequent inadequacy of their efforts to help them.

Widespread recognition of the benefits of minimally invasive procedures in surgery and medicine is resulting in the rapid development of new advances and new techniques in every speciality. This series of books sets out to meet the needs of those responsible for applying the techniques. This volume deals with the field of minimal access gynaecology. Areas covered and techniques described include: advances in instrumentation and equipment for minimal access surgery; operative endoscopy in the treatment of infertility; laparoscopic assisted vaginal hysterectomy and total laparoscopic hysterectomy; advancements in laser fibre optic delivery systems compared to existing electrosurgery techniques; and operative hysteroscopy with electricity.