Covers issues from unnecessary surgeries and prescribed drugs to preventive medicine and home births.

Here's a Doctor who can write. Ray West, a self-confessed "understudy of the Great healer, Jesus Christ" chronicles in CONFESSIONS Incidents from three or more decades of medical practice. In a chatty style reminiscent of James Herriot's vignettes based on his veterinary practice, West introduces graphic events revealing the underside as well as the drama of interacting with patients, their family members and colleagues. Edna Maye Loveless, Esteemed Author and Educator Dr. Raymond West, a master storyteller and model of the ideal Family Physician (as well as teacher and researcher of Epidemiology) describes highlights of his career applying the basic principles of both science and art of medical practice. Examples of encounters from his years of successful caring for the emotional and spiritual as well as physical needs of patients, demonstrate for the reader, memorable examples of principles applicable to real life. Whether you are a medical care provider or a patient, you will love the stories and benefit from the inspiration of a Christ centered approach to the practice of medicine. Edwin H. Krick, MD, MPH., Associate professor of Medicine, Loma Linda University Doctor Raymond West's 'Confessions' is interesting in showing a Christian Doctor's life and temptations. He was one of returning sailors from WW2 who was given the opportunity, by a grateful government, to a medical profession previously limited mainly to the wealthy. This "GI surge" was responsibly, in great part, to a rapid technological progress in medicine. Dr. West's book reveals how this new technology has become a substitute for detailed questioning and manual examination of patients! He shows how a careful examination plus a knowledge of historical medicine is useful in diagnosis. His lifelong keeping of a detailed diary of interesting cases makes Dr. West and this book remarkable. I recommend it highly. Bernarr Johnson, MD, FACS

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VIII For the nonce I will take leave of those tangled and difficult problems, which I am at a loss to solve, and in the face of which I must confess utter helplessness. I will now occupy myself with a question to which but one answer is possible, and that a perfectly straight one. It deals with gross and entirely conscious disregard for that consideration which is due to the human being. I approach the subject with regret, but it is impossible to pass it by. "A certain Dr Koch," we read in the Russian medical paper, Physician, "has published a pamphlet, entitled, ' Aerztliche Versuche an labenden Menschen' (' Medical Experiments on Living Man '), than which nothing were better calculated to further undermine the respect for, and confidence of the laity in, our profession. The author essays to prove that 'vivisection has long crossed the thresholds of our hospitals'--in other words, that experiments similar to those conducted upon the lower animals in the laboratory, are practised on living man in our infirmaries. As might have been expected, Koch's book was immediately seized upon by different feuilleton writers and newspapers chroniclers. It were highly desirable that our German colleagues should not leave a single one of Dr Koch's 'facts' without searching inquiry and explanation, as it is only possible by this means to nullify the effect of his book." (See The Physician, 1893, P-906.) 103 I have not read the above-mentioned pamphlet, and do not know how far the " facts" mentioned by Dr Koch merit the ironical inverted commas which the editor of the Physician had seen fit to place them in. But unfortunately there is much substantial truth even in the title of Dr Koch's booklet alone. In proof of the above it would be easy enough...

The Confessions of a Physician Operative By: Dr. John W. Ford When the sudden death of his mother and abandonment by his father leaves young Sean Devlin without a home, he leaves the life he knows to move in with his aunt Jill. Though his childhood is tumultuous and often lonely, he finds love and acceptance in his new home and Sean grows up to become a very successful physician. But Sean lives a secret life. Ever the contradictory figure, Sean, when not saving his patients' lives, is a physician/killer for the CIA, and later in life, a crack operative for Israel's Mossad intelligence agency - a life he keeps closely guarded. The Confessions of a Physician Operative tells the story of a willful, complicated, and enigmatic figure and the unprecedented life he lived.

Unnecessary death rarely happens at the hands of doctors, but it does happen. Sometimes the cause is medical error. But sometimes the cause is politics. The issues underlying many medical catastrophes are numerous: a power struggle between providers, uncertainty over who’s in charge, hesitation to practice good medicine for fear of being fired, specialization run amok, part-time doctoring. Doctors often prefer to ignore the problems, but patient safety demands that they be aired. And so does the future of the medical profession. Beneath the politics lies confusion: Doctors no longer know who they are. They don’t know how much authority they should wield. They don’t know what distinguishes them from other healthcare professionals. They don’t what about being a doctor should make them proud. When doctors lack a firm sense of who they are, the whole of medicine lacks an essential core, giving rise to personal and professional politics—and catastrophes. Patients may be relying on a system that has veered off course. In dramatic and revealing stories of patients in the operating room and interactions with colleagues, Ronald W. Dworkin traces his path from medical school to anesthesiology residency to his early years in private practice, with the experiences of his father and grandfather, also doctors, hovering overhead, in his quest to answer the question: What is a Doctor? Sometimes funny, sometimes scary, sometimes poignant, the story of what it means to be a doctor in today’s medical setting comes to life, as Dworkin outlines the contours, the challenges and rewards, of modern medicine, and how it must be rescued in order to preserve the profession and protect patients from disasters.