An informative study of cisgender female care in medicine, from hysteria to Covid-19, with a focus on chronic pain.
An exploration of how “women’s pain is all too often dismissed, their illnesses misdiagnosed or ignored."
Jackson, an associate news editor at the Guardian, breezily translates decades of medical research, interviews, and statistics into a book that challenges what we think we know about women’s health and pain. The author, who suffers from endometriosis, expands on her earlier journalism on the condition, writing of the startling misconceptions surrounding cisgender women’s treatment in the medical system. Jackson locates the foundation of modern medicine’s dismissal and misdiagnoses of countless women by detailing the history of hysteria and its insidious consequences for women. For example, she highlights how most people would be surprised to learn that “in 2004, 7.4 million women over 60 years of age died of cardiovascular disease compared with 6.3 million men.” This misconception—that heart disease afflicts the male population more than the female population—is one of many Jackson corrects throughout the book. She adroitly synthesizes complex medical studies and interviews with medical professionals, patients, and researchers. One conclusion is that medical professionals’ current lack of consensus on the best treatments for women with chronic diseases is due to the paucity of clinical trials and dedicated funding for research into how these diseases specifically affect cisgender female patients—or female rodents in trials. Jackson is most effective when she brings together disparate sources and findings to reach digestible conclusions. The author’s personal tale of her struggle with endometriosis creates an engaging familiarity with readers, but her occasionally derisive tone toward men, lumped together as an undifferentiated group, could alienate an otherwise receptive audience. Nonetheless, Jackson is effective in her presentation of pertinent, often surprising information that could help many women stay healthy and find quality, personalized health care.
An informative study of cisgender female care in medicine, from hysteria to Covid-19, with a focus on chronic pain.Pub Date: March 8, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-77164-716-8
Page Count: 392
Publisher: Greystone Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 6, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2021
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
A harrowing memoir of grief and love.
An indelible portrait of a mother’s courage.
Award-winning novelist McCann and Foley, mother of murdered journalist James Wright Foley (1973-2014), offer a powerful recounting of the unspeakable tragedy and its aftermath. In August 2014, after being held hostage for two years, Jim was beheaded by Islamic Group terrorists. He had been taken hostage once before, in Libya, but that time was released after 44 days. Undaunted, he went to Syria “determined to bear witness to the horrific bombings and gassings of innocent civilians by the Assad regime.” After he was taken hostage, the Foley family, to their deepening dismay, discovered that the U.S. refused unequivocally to negotiate for hostages’ release, and the Foleys were threatened with prosecution if they tried to raise ransom money on their own. Meanwhile, though, through “an incredibly circuitous route,” several European governments managed to free their own hostages. “They insinuated themselves carefully into the communications system,” the authors write, “got under the umbrella of the emails, and forged their own secret methods that included a network of agents and ambassadors and, yes, even spies.” Foley vents her anger toward the many government officials who claimed they were powerless to help. “The plain fact of the matter is that we don’t care as much for our aid workers or our volunteer ambulance drivers or our journalists as we do for our military,” the authors assert. Foley and her family founded the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation to advocate for the freedom of those taken hostage or detained abroad, and she takes hope from recent legislation, most recently by Biden’s executive order, in support of hostages. Hoping for “answers to help her in the wider work against hostage-taking,” Foley met with one of the terrorists involved in her son’s murder—unsettling encounters that bracket the striking narrative.
A harrowing memoir of grief and love.Pub Date: March 5, 2024
ISBN: 9798985882452
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Etruscan Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
bookshelf
