The Dark Side of Healthcare draws uncomfortable lessons from over 300 case studies of events that occurred in the healthcare sector. Health services have many skilled and dedicated professionals but there is a dark side that cannot be ignored. The unthinkable has happened and might have been prevented.The case studies from many countries include serial killers with a health background, drugs and medical devices that proved to be dangerous, negligent and poor clinical practices, as well as incompetent and weak management that led to failing hospitals and harm to patients. There are also corruption cases, accidents at work, and cases involving the sexual exploitation of children. Politicians' early responses to COVID-19 and the subsequent missteps are also scrutinised. Many of the errors and omissions that led to patient harm have been repeated.This book is not an attack on health services or health professionals. Instead, it is a search for ways of making health delivery safer for patients and staff who deliver care often in challenging circumstances. Its focus is learning rather than blame.

Patient empowerment as a key component in the future of healthcare systems is the focus of this concise in-depth analysis. It begins by defining patient empowerment as a collaborative partnership linking patients, providers, and systems, and examines the roles of health literacy, provider-patient and system-patient communication, and patient-centered care in the empowerment process. Models of positive and negative empowerment identify optimum conditions when patient and provider participate in service design and delivery as well as pitfalls and risks to patient and system when goals and input are mismatched. The book also translates concepts into practice with guidelines for empowerment strategies at the provider and organization levels to improve patient outcomes and system sustainability. Included in the coverage: · Empowering healthcare organizations to empower patients · A re-design of the patient-provider partnership · Patient empowerment: a requisite for sustainability · The risks of value co-destruction in service systems · The need for enlightening and managing the dark side of patient empowerment · Disentangling the relationship between individual health literacy and patient empowerment Straightforwardly written as a call for proactive change, The Bright Side and the Dark Side of Patient Empowerment is an illuminating text for scholars interested in patient empowerment and patient engagement, policymakers and managers operating in the healthcare field, and healthcare and social care providers.

'Successful medical leaders are usually, but not always, experienced and credible clinicians with good people skills, who look beyond the boundaries of their own specialty or institution, who are positive and perseverant and who are prepared to take reasonable risks to achieve their goals. Most importantly they know how to engage their colleagues and effect change. They understand the principles of organisational performance and the balance between professional autonomy and corporate behaviour - ' Sir Bruce Keogh, in the Foreword This book is a comprehensive account of the key aspects of medical leadership. Easy to read and highly accessible, it explores how the medical profession has evolved in tandem with administrative and structural aspects of the NHS: previously reluctant leaders, doctors are increasingly positive about adopting management and organisational responsibility. Assuming leadership roles at all stages of their training and career is a progressively vital component of the definition of a 'good doctor'. Completely up-to-date, this book features exciting and critical developments such as the embedding of the Medical Leadership Competency Framework as a statutory element of the training and development of all doctors, and the establishment of a new Faculty of Medical Leadership and Management. It is highly recommended, inspiring reading for all medical professionals taking on formal leadership roles. Junior doctors, too, will find much of interest.

By New Yorker and Atlantic writer Carl Elliott, a readable and even funny account of the serious business of medicine. A tongue-in-cheek account of the changes that have transformed medicine into big business. Physician and medical ethicist Carl Elliott tracks the new world of commercialized medicine from start to finish, introducing the professional guinea pigs, ghostwriters, thought leaders, drug reps, public relations pros, and even medical ethicists who use medicine for (sometimes huge) financial gain. Along the way, he uncovers the cost to patients lost in a health-care universe centered around consumerism.

Is medicine dying is this country? Will you have a doctor to take care of you in the future whom you trust and have confidence in? In The Dark Side of Medicine, An Insider's View Dr. Robert J. Anderson exposes the ominous changes that have taken place in the healthcare industry over the past twenty-five years. Anderson argues that if things continue on their current path, soon no one will be adequately cared for when illness strikes. How can this be in the greatest country in the history of the world? Anderson details the rigorous and lengthy training of doctors and explains that upon graduation they face an even greater challenge-making their practices economically viable. He also presents the industry changes many are making for the worse, and explains that our only chance is positive change, which can only be effected by us, the current and future patients. Otherwise, when disease and illness come none of us will have a very good prognosis. The Dark Side of Medicine, An Insider's View will inform you of the current deterioration of this once honored profession and give you advice on how to get quality healthcare in today's environment.

The New York Times Science Bestseller from Robert Wachter, Modern Healthcare’s #1 Most Influential Physician-Executive in the US While modern medicine produces miracles, it also delivers care that is too often unsafe, unreliable, unsatisfying, and impossibly expensive. For the past few decades, technology has been touted as the cure for all of healthcare’s ills. But medicine stubbornly resisted computerization – until now. Over the past five years, thanks largely to billions of dollars in federal incentives, healthcare has finally gone digital. Yet once clinicians started using computers to actually deliver care, it dawned on them that something was deeply wrong. Why were doctors no longer making eye contact with their patients? How could one of America’s leading hospitals give a teenager a 39-fold overdose of a common antibiotic, despite a state-of-the-art computerized prescribing system? How could a recruiting ad for physicians tout the absence of an electronic medical record as a major selling point? Logically enough, we’ve pinned the problems on clunky software, flawed implementations, absurd regulations, and bad karma. It was all of those things, but it was also something far more complicated. And far more interesting . . . Written with a rare combination of compelling stories and hard-hitting analysis by one of the nation’s most thoughtful physicians, The Digital Doctor examines healthcare at the dawn of its computer age. It tackles the hard questions, from how technology is changing care at the bedside to whether government intervention has been useful or destructive. And it does so with clarity, insight, humor, and compassion. Ultimately, it is a hopeful story. "We need to recognize that computers in healthcare don’t simply replace my doctor’s scrawl with Helvetica 12," writes the author Dr. Robert Wachter. "Instead, they transform the work, the people who do it, and their relationships with each other and with patients. . . . Sure, we should have thought of this sooner. But it’s not too late to get it right." This riveting book offers the prescription for getting it right, making it essential reading for everyone – patient and provider alike – who cares about our healthcare system.

In the Name of Progress: The Dark Side of Medical Research is a comprehensive exploration of the dark side of medical progress, examining a series of unethical medical experiments conducted over the past century.This book delves into notorious cases like the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, the Guatemala Syphilis Experiment, and the Holmesburg Prison experiments, among others, to shed light on the ethical violations and exploitation that occurred under the guise of scientific advancement. Each chapter methodically uncovers the disturbing details of these studies, analyzing the impact on the victims and the long-term effects on public trust and medical ethics.By providing a critical examination of the ethical breaches in historical medical research, this book emphasizes the importance of informed consent, the protection of vulnerable populations, and the need for stringent ethical standards in medical studies. It aims to educate and provoke thoughtful discussion on the balance between scientific discovery and ethical conduct, highlighting the necessity of safeguarding human rights in medical research and the importance of maintaining ethical integrity in the pursuit of scientific knowledge.