Archive for the 'Books' Category

I wanted to let you all know that the new book I’ve  co-authored with Dr. Richard Jackson of Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston is now published! 

 

It’s called Know Your Numbers, Outlive Your Diabetes – the first-ever hands-on guide to help patients identify and manage their most critical health risks with diabetes.  It also guides people in setting doable action plans, giving them confidence and hope that a long and healthy life with diabetes is possible.

We’re very excited, and early reviews from doctors, educators and other patients are big thumbs-up so far.

 

The book is available at Amazon, Borders, Barnes & Noble, etc.  As of today, you can also order a copy directly off my blog (www.diabetesmine.com) and get a free trial pack of ExtendBars (slow-release carb snack).

 

Check it out.

Thanks much!

 

- Amy

So, if it at all interests you, please get a copy!

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…are up here.

I very much enjoyed getting to read these stories, some more than others, and I think you’d like some of them yourselves!  So. when you have a minute, zoom over and have a read.

And many congrats to author Steve Carper for the winner (I won’t spoil it for you).

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I was generously offered an advance copy of

“The Man with the Iron Tattoo and Other True Tales of Uncommon Wisdom: What Our Patients Have Taught Us About Love, Faith and Healing”

by doctors John E. Castaldo and Lawerence P. Levitt.  Additionally, I was given the opportunity to interview one of the authors by telephone (my first phone interview of an author!).

The book (which needs a more abbreviated title) is a series of stories mostly about patient interactions, and what they learned about themselves and their profession and practice from them.  The one that wasn’t about a patient was about the suicide of a physician colleague, and its effect on them (it is a model for how docs should look at themselves and each other to see and acknowledge the warning signs of serious depression in people conditioned to ignore their own problems and feelings).

Although I don’t want to spoil the book, there is one chapter in which the child of an author is brain injured in an auto accident, and there is a subtext of what incredible jerks doctors are, even to each other, which is painful to read but very very real.

I enjoyed it, and recommend it for a general audience, but the medical types will enjoy it as well.

For those who don’t want to read the interview, it’s available at Amazon , Independent Publishers Group, and Ben Bella Books.

Dr. Larry Leavitt (Senior Neurologist Emeritus at Lehigh Valley Hospital) took some time from his busy schedule and agreed to be interviewed by me, and here is a poorly-transcribed partial transcript (and any missing conversation or errors are mine):

Read the rest of this entry »

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Dr Sidney Schwab has written a book, and I bought one.

It’s aimed at a general audience, and while not a ‘natural’ writer his prose is very accessible and he takes great pains to make the medical jargon easily understandable.

His topic is that physical, emotional and intellectual challenge that is residency, specifically a surgical residency in a city by a bay in the 70’s. Intense situations make for indelible memories, and that’s what this was for him (and anyone who’s done a residency worth a damn) and he’s given us an inside look. A non-too-sparing look, as well, with instructors he felt were sub-par identified as such. There’s some tense memories, and it’s obvious he reigned some of it in while telling the story.

And, he made me laugh out loud. Really, I was laughing aloud after reading a particular passage (about a retractor), and that’s a rarity for me.

Recommended. Here’s where to get yours.

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Today I got a copy of Vaccines: Preventing Disease and Protecting Health, published by the Pan American Health Organization, ("Regional Office of the World Health Organization").  For some odd reason I like reading about Public Health, and I have a profound appreciation for vaccinations.

If you want bang-for-buck in medicine, vaccines beat an MRI scanner hands down.  (Yeah, I know they aren’t interchangeable, but I like the contrast).  So, soon another book review!

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