At 57 years old, John Kerastas thought he was the poster child for fifty-year old healthiness: he competed in triathlons, rode in 100 mile biking events and ate a healthy diet chock full of organic vegetables. Then he discovered that he had a brain tumor the size of his wife's fist. His memoir chronicles the first year he spent addressing tumor-related health issues: preparing for his first operation, discovering a dangerous skull infection, having the infected portion of his skull surgically removed, learning about his substantial vision and cognitive losses, undergoing rehab and radiation treatments, and learning to live with his "new normal." According to Kerastas, the phrase "new normal" is the medical community's code words for "You're alive, so quit complaining." As his health changed, so did his sense of humor. He writes that his humor started out superficially light-hearted prior to the first operation; transmogrified into gallows humor after several subsequent operations; and leveled out as somewhat wry-ish after radiation and rehab. This is a surprisingly upbeat and inspiring book for anybody interested in memoirs about people dealing with personal crises, for patients trudging through rehab, for caretakers helping victims of serious illnesses, or for anybody looking for an unexpected chuckle from an unlikely subject. JOHN KERASTAS has worked at a global advertising agency, at several technology start-up companies and as a free-lance writer. Now, in addition to non-profit and charitable work, he spends his time blogging, speaking and writing about brain health, brain tumors and rehab. You can follow his blog or view his presentations schedule at www.johnstumor.blogspot.com.

You know that anything can happen in the emrgency department. Are you prepared to face the challenges? By presenting 100 real-life case studies, Drs. Freed, Mayer, and Platt help you understand the full range of medical emergencies, including trauma, drug- and alcohol-related problems, pediatric emergencies, heart problems, and psychiatric issues. To show you how emergency staff evaluate and solve problems, each case study includes: succinct descriptions of symptoms and circumstances, discussion of diagnosis and treatment, questions that stimulate further discussion, and current references. Completely updated, this third edition reflects the way emergency medicine is practiced today. This new third edition now includes more cases that demonstrate how all members of the emergency staff - practicing physicians, residents, nurses, medical students, and prehospital care providers - interact and react in emergency situations.

This book is a comprehensive and up-to-date compendium of all aspects of brain tumors in children. After introductory chapters on the epidemiology of brain tumors, the book will provide readers with state-of-the art chapters on the principals of radiation therapy, neurosurgery and neuroimaging. Subsequent chapters discuss the biology and treatment of specific types of brain tumors. The concluding chapters present critical information relevant to survivorship, neurocognitive and other late effects, and the global challenges to better diagnosis and treatment of brain tumors in children. This book is co-authored by experts in the treatment of pediatric brain tumors. All of the authors are internationally recognized authorities and they offer an evidence-based consensus on the biology and treatment of brain tumors. This handbook has far-reaching applicability to the clinical diagnosis and management of brain tumors in children and will prove valuable to specialists, generalists and trainees alike.

The Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) provides disability compensation to veterans with a service-connected injury, and to receive disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), a veteran must submit a claim or have a claim submitted on his or her behalf. Evaluation of the Disability Determination Process for Traumatic Brain Injury in Veterans reviews the process by which the VA assesses impairments resulting from traumatic brain injury for purposes of awarding disability compensation. This report also provides recommendations for legislative or administrative action for improving the adjudication of veterans' claims seeking entitlement to compensation for all impairments arising from a traumatic brain injury.

How We Do Harm exposes the underbelly of healthcare today—the overtreatment of the rich, the under treatment of the poor, the financial conflicts of interest that determine the care that physicians' provide, insurance companies that don't demand the best (or even the least expensive) care, and pharmaceutical companies concerned with selling drugs, regardless of whether they improve health or do harm. Dr. Otis Brawley is the chief medical and scientific officer of The American Cancer Society, an oncologist with a dazzling clinical, research, and policy career. How We Do Harm pulls back the curtain on how medicine is really practiced in America. Brawley tells of doctors who select treatment based on payment they will receive, rather than on demonstrated scientific results; hospitals and pharmaceutical companies that seek out patients to treat even if they are not actually ill (but as long as their insurance will pay); a public primed to swallow the latest pill, no matter the cost; and rising healthcare costs for unnecessary—and often unproven—treatments that we all pay for. Brawley calls for rational healthcare, healthcare drawn from results-based, scientifically justifiable treatments, and not just the peddling of hot new drugs. Brawley's personal history – from a childhood in the gang-ridden streets of black Detroit, to the green hallways of Grady Memorial Hospital, the largest public hospital in the U.S., to the boardrooms of The American Cancer Society—results in a passionate view of medicine and the politics of illness in America - and a deep understanding of healthcare today. How We Do Harm is his well-reasoned manifesto for change.

Fully-updated edition of this award-winning textbook, arranged by presenting complaints with full-color images throughout. For students, residents, and emergency physicians.

Unique in the field, Intrinsic and Skull Base Tumors presents commonly encountered skull base and intrinsic neoplasm cases with side-by-side, case-by-case comparisons that clearly show how various experts would handle the same case. This inaugural volume in the Neurosurgery: Case Comparison Series offers multiple opinions from international experts in neurosurgery who provide various approaches and management styles for the same case. This format allows for quick and helpful comparisons of different ways to approach a lesion, advantages and disadvantages of each approach, and what each expert is looking for in how they would manage a particular case. Offers 3 to 4 expert opinions on each case in a templated format designed to help you quickly make side-by-side comparisons—an ideal learning tool for both trainees and practicing neurosurgeons for board review and case preparation. Helps you easily grasp different approaches to brain tumor management with different expert approaches to the same case and summaries from the editors on the advantages and disadvantages to each approach. Features a wide variety of management decisions, from preoperative studies to surgical approach, surgical adjuncts, and postoperative care, from experts in the field who specialize in different aspects of neurosurgery. Covers low and high grade gliomas, metastatic brain cancers, meningiomas, sellar and parasellar lesions, skull base lesions, and other brain lesions such as colloid cyst, cavernoma, hemangioblastoma, brain abscess, and more.