A penetrating and personal look at a major problem in our nation's medical schools affecting how doctoring is taught and how medicine is practiced

Why is this the case? --

Doctors are taught how to cure people. But they don’t always know how to care for them. Hardly anyone is happy with American healthcare these days. Patients are getting sicker and going bankrupt from medical bills. Doctors are burning out and making dangerous mistakes. Both parties blame our nation’s outdated and dysfunctional healthcare system. But that’s only part of the problem. In this important and timely book, Dr. Robert Pearl shines a light on the unseen and often toxic culture of medicine. Today’s physicians have a surprising disdain for technology, an unhealthy obsession with status, and an increasingly complicated relationship with their patients. All of this can be traced back to their earliest experiences in medical school, where doctors inherit a set of norms, beliefs, and expectations that shape almost every decision they make, with profound consequences for the rest of us. Uncaring draws an original and revealing portrait of what it’s actually like to be a doctor. It illuminates the complex and intimidating world of medicine for readers, and in the end offers a clear plan to save American healthcare.

Attaining professional success and finding personal happiness in academic medicine is not an easy path, yet both are critical if the future is to be brighter through better science, better clinical care, better training, better responsiveness to communities, and better stewardship and leadership in the health professions. This concise, easy to read title consists of “mini” chapters intended as a resource to assist early- and middle-career physicians, clinicians, and scientists in understanding the unique mission of academic medicine and building creative, effective, and inspiring careers in academic health organizations. Organized in eight sections, the Guide covers such areas as finding your path in academic medicine, getting established at an institution, approaching work with colleagues, writing and reviewing manuscripts, conducting empirical research, developing administrative skills, advancing your academic career, and balancing your professional and personal life. Each chapter includes pointers and valuable career and “best practices” strategies in relation to the topic area. An exciting addition to the professional development literature, Achievement and Fulfillment in Academic Medicine: A Comprehensive Guide is an indispensable resource for anyone seeking to achieve a fulfilling career in academic medicine.

Arts Therapies and Gender Issues offers international perspectives on gender in arts therapies research and demonstrates understandings of gender and arts therapies in a variety of global contexts. Analysing current innovations and approaches in the arts therapies, it discusses issues of cultural identity, which intersect with sex, gender norms, stereotypes and sexual identity. The book includes unique and detailed case studies such as the emerging discipline of creative writing for therapeutic purposes, re-enactment phototherapy, performative practice and virtual reality. Bringing together leading researchers, it demonstrates clinical applications and shares ideas about best practice. Incorporating art, drama, dance and music therapy, this book will be of great interest to academics and researchers in the fields of arts therapies, psychology, medicine, psychotherapy, health and education. It will also appeal to practitioners and teachers of art, dance-movement, drama and music therapy.

In the 21st century, academic medical centers across the United States continue to make scientific breakthroughs, to make improvements in patient care, and to p- vide the most advanced information and guidance in matters affecting public health. The signs of growth are everywhere—in new research buildings, new pa- nerships with industry, new forms of molecular medicine, and new sensitivity to the role of the human spirit in healing. This growth is due in large part to the dedication and productivity of our faculty, who are providing more patient care, more research, more teaching, and more community service than ever before. Today, there are roughly 135,000 physicians, scientists, and other faculty wo- ing at approximately 125 academic medical centers around the country. Increasingly, they are asked to do more with less. Since the 1990s, academic medical centers in the United States have lost the financial margin they once enjoyed, thereby putting new pressures on research, education, and clinical care. Medical school faculty, previously given funded time for teaching and research, are increasingly drafted to bring in clinical revenues to cover their salaries. Dedicated to the missions of research, teaching, and care, our faculty have responded well to these challenges and perform at a very high level. However, we are beginning to see the results of ongoing stress.

Contemporary confluences of leadership decision-making and citizenship behavior often unintentionally contribute to the depletion of the world’s resources – escalating health, education, and social crises, as well as community, societal, and cultural struggles – to adapt to emerging global shifts. Leadership and management practices in this context affect the wellbeing of organizational members (e.g., their safety, health, financial security, etc.) but also entail positive or negative impacts on consumer practices and collective community well-being (e.g., education, obesity, cancer, safe or green driving, energy conservation, diversity based health care, etc.). Decision-making in most businesses and organizations is largely responsive to demands for short-term profit or cost minimization. On the consumer side, both cultural values and the corporate marketing practices that sustain them encourage high levels of consumption necessary to sustain corporate practices. In exploring the emerging applications of behavior science to these challenges, this book showcases emerging work by internationally recognized scholars on leadership and cultural change. The book will aid organizations and leaders in creating new models of stewardship, and will open opportunities for innovation while adapting and responding to growing social upheaval, technological advances, and environmental concerns, as well as crises in the global economy, health, education, and environment. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Organizational Behavior Management.