Incendiary stuff—and fuel for those who urge reforms in the health-care system.
A worm’s-eye view of why American medicine is in such bad shape, and what can be done to heal it.
Lundberg made national news a couple of years back for being fired as editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association. He was removed from his influential post not, he recalls, for his activist stand on matters such as nuclear weaponry and universal health-care coverage, but because he had been perhaps a little too openly critical of American hospitals’ increasing failure to perform autopsies on patients who had died within their walls. Only about 10 percent of such deaths are followed by autopsies, which, Lundberg argues, constitutes a lapse in quality control. “Think of it this way,” he writes. “Where would teaching be without testing students? Where would banking be without auditors? . . . Where would airline pilots be without air traffic controllers? That is where medicine would be without the autopsy. It is the one place where truth can be sought, found, and told without conflict of interest.” Now editor of an online medical-information service, Lundberg still has plenty to say about autopsies, one of many subjects he covers in this highly critical study. He also has much to say about the transformation of American medicine into a provider of cures and not care, wedded to enormously complex and expensive technology and to an inflationary, self-serving system where staggering costs are the unquestioned order of the day. “The system,” he writes, “is set to jump into interventions, some entailing considerable risks, while it largely neglects giving attention, comfort, and reassurance to patients.” He proposes reining in surgical interventions that have become too freely used (such as the coronary artery bypass graft, as commonly dispensed as aspirin, it seems) and banning direct-to-consumer medical advertising, which, he believes, squanders health-care dollars and commercializes a profession that, in the end, ought to be above mere dollars.
Incendiary stuff—and fuel for those who urge reforms in the health-care system.Pub Date: April 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-465-04291-0
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2001
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Pub Date: Feb. 23, 1955
ISBN: 0670717797
Page Count: -
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1955
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