Almost 20 billion times each year, a person walks into a doctor's office. The person becomes a patient. Everyone becomes this patient at some point. How will you talk to your physicians? What will you tell them? What will they tell you in return? They can't tell you what they don't know. They can tell you when they don't know. Will they? What Doctors Cannot Tell You explores the uncertainty that pervades medicine. It breaks the code of silence within which too many physician-patient conversations take place. The patients' stories in its pages will empower you to ask questions of your physicians, with a firm belief that healing and hope begin from honesty in those critical conversations. This book marries surgically precise medical narrative to thinking and perspective that will throw the curtains wide on what medicine knows, what it doesn't know, and how it tries to tell the difference between the two. This book is Outliers meets Patch Adams, only with an added how-to twist beyond the instructive and powerfully human narratives. At every chapter's end, the reader will find a list of principles, one for each vignette, and questions to ask his or her physician. A few books in the last decade have focused on human errors and complications in medicine. Each has suggested ways to improve medicine by the application of checklists and protocols. This book adds a unique and important angle to these considerations: How firmly do we know what should go on the checklist or protocol in the first place? How clear has medicine been with its patients about what it cannot know or does not yet know?

"Almost 20 billion times each year, a person walks into a doctor's office. The person becomes a patient. Everyone becomes this patient at some point. How will you talk to your physicians? What will you tell them? What will they tell you in return? They can't tell you what they don't know. They can tell you when they don't know. Will they? What Doctors Cannot Tell You explores the uncertainty that pervades medicine. It breaks the code of silence within which too many physician-patient conversations take place. The patients' stories in its pages will empower you to ask questions of your physicians, with a firm belief that healing and hope begin from honesty in those critical conversations."--Publisher description.

New edition of this highly controversial and campaigning book that reveals the truth about the pills and procedures your doctor prescribes and offers proven alternatives for diagnosing, preventing and treating many illnesses. Includes updated information on all the most recent health issues - vaccination, HRT, Viagra, IVF and more. Every year, 1.17 million British people - a population the size of Birmingham - are put in a hospital bed by a medical procedure gone wrong. And 80% of most of the treatments we take for granted have never been scientifically proven to work. In this groundbreaking book, leading health campaigner Lynne McTaggart reveals the real secrets of modern medicine. Extensively revised and updated, this new edition tackles some of the most worrying health issues of recent years. For example, did you know: * Statin drugs, the new miracle cure for high cholesterol, are causing a heart failure epidemic? * SSRI drugs - now come with a black box warning about suicide risk to children * HRT, touted as the most important preventative treatment for all the diseases of female old age, actually causes heart disease, dementia, strokes and cancer? * IVF could be causing cases of breast cancer? * The statistics about illnesses prevented by vaccination are vastly overplayed? * Viagra, the great white hope of male impotence, has caused a rash of sudden deaths and is effective, at most, only half the time. What Doctors Don't Tell You gives you all the information you need to take your health into your own hands, exposing the true dangers of conventional medicine and offering up-to-the-minute, scientifically proven alternatives for diagnosing, preventing and treating many illnesses.

Americans have become so accustomed to following doctors' orders that many prescriptions, medical tests, and surgical procedures are accepted without question. This blind faith can be dangerous! Modern medicine offers us a wide range of powerful treatments for ailments large and small. But did you know that some common "cures" come with serious, life-threatening risks, or may do nothing at all? This book contains much more vital information you need to know to take charge of your health--before you see your doctor. Includes information on: cholesterol-lowering medications; high-strength asthma inhalers; steroids; antibiotics; and Ritalin. Some startling facts you should know: Some sholesterol-lowering medications can actually increase your chances of dying. The rise in asthma deaths may be linked to high-strength inhalers. In some cases, it's safer to do nothing than have surgery for prostate cancer. Steroids, now widely prescribed for many minor conditions, can cause immediate, permanent, debilitating damage. Bone scans to screen for osteoporosis are imprecise, often inaccurate, and may not signify anything. In the overwhelming majority of cases, antibiotics are prescribed for conditions they cannot treat. Ritalin, taken by as many as a million American children, has questionable benefits, numerous side effects, and a high potential for addiction or abuse.“P> The U.S. Natinoal Institutes of Health estimate that 90% of patients who undergo bypass surgery receive almost no benefits. and much more vital information you need to know--before you see your doctor.

In the 1830s, when a brave and curious girl named Elizabeth Blackwell was growing up, women were supposed to be wives and mothers. Some women could be teachers or seamstresses, but career options were few. Certainly no women were doctors. But Elizabeth refused to accept the common beliefs that women weren't smart enough to be doctors, or that they were too weak for such hard work. And she would not take no for an answer. Although she faced much opposition, she worked hard and finally—when she graduated from medical school and went on to have a brilliant career—proved her detractors wrong. This inspiring story of the first female doctor shows how one strong-willed woman opened the doors for all the female doctors to come. Who Says Women Can't Be Doctors? by Tanya Lee Stone is an NPR Best Book of 2013 This title has common core connections.

Arguing that giving estrogen replacement therapy to women after menopause is medically the wrong thing to do, Lee suggests that natural progesterone can prevent most of the unpleasant side effects of menopause, including osteoporosis and weight gain.

What Doctors Cannot Tell You explores the uncertainty that pervades medicine. It breaks the code of silence within which too many physician-patient conversations take place. The patients' stories in its pages will empower you to ask questions of your physicians, with a firm belief that healing and hope begin from honesty in those critical conversations. This book marries surgically precise medical narrative to thinking and perspective that will throw the curtains wide on what medicine knows, what it doesn't know, and how it tries to tell the difference between the two.