A fascinating, realistic study of pain management and addiction that offers hope to patients and their families.
A physiatrist and pain management specialist analyzes the intricacies of addiction and pain.
In his pain management business, Dr. Oh is vigilant about watching for red flags—signs that a patient may be abusing or becoming addicted to a prescribed medication. He begins his analysis of drug dependence by discussing 10 myths and misconceptions about addiction, citing the misleading and oft-depicted image of an addict in movies or TV, as if the person who is high always “looks inebriated, intoxicated, and half falling asleep.” Oh explains that for most people, the effect of opiates is sedation, though addicts described their initial reactions as “stimulating and energizing.” Oh downplays the idea of an “addictive personality,” feeling that it unfairly blames the victim. “The only thing that predicts whether a person is susceptible to a drug or not is one’s genetics,” he says. “The only way you will know whether you are susceptible to a drug is by the way the drug makes you feel.” Oh explains that it is that initial euphoria that the addict chases—losing jobs, forsaking health, friends and family on the way. Though doctors are aware of the possibility that their patients will become addicted to their pain medications, Oh believes that many doctors choose not to see the signs of addiction. “For most physicians...it is easier to give into the patient’s demand and give him what he wants rather than trying to delve too deep underneath the surface.” The author does a fine job explaining the complex aspects of how the chemistry of the brain is affected by various drugs, including a description of the five known opiate receptors in the brain and the three classes of opiate pain medication. He illustrates his narrative with 20 case studies and synopses of cases of addicts whom Oh treated for pain management, some with positive outcomes, some with negative results. Also included is a helpful glossary as well as information on addiction, which Oh regularly hands out to his own patients.
A fascinating, realistic study of pain management and addiction that offers hope to patients and their families.Pub Date: June 20, 2014
ISBN: 978-1497446083
Page Count: 304
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.
A lightweight collection of self-help snippets from the bestselling author.
What makes a quote a quote? Does it have to be quoted by someone other than the original author? Apparently not, if we take Strayed’s collection of truisms as an example. The well-known memoirist (Wild), novelist (Torch), and radio-show host (“Dear Sugar”) pulls lines from her previous pages and delivers them one at a time in this small, gift-sized book. No excerpt exceeds one page in length, and some are only one line long. Strayed doesn’t reference the books she’s drawing from, so the quotes stand without context and are strung together without apparent attention to structure or narrative flow. Thus, we move back and forth from first-person tales from the Pacific Crest Trail to conversational tidbits to meditations on grief. Some are astoundingly simple, such as Strayed’s declaration that “Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard.” Others call on the author’s unique observations—people who regret what they haven’t done, she writes, end up “mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions” of themselves—and offer a reward for wading through obvious advice like “Trust your gut.” Other quotes sound familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read Strayed’s other work, but likely due to the influence of other authors on her writing. When she writes about blooming into your own authenticity, for instance, one is immediately reminded of Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Strayed’s true blossoming happens in her longer works; while this collection might brighten someone’s day—and is sure to sell plenty of copies during the holidays—it’s no substitute for the real thing.
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-101-946909
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
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