HOW TO STAY OUT OF THE HOSPITAL: A Practical Guide to Healthy Options and Alternatives

An encouraging and informed discussion of the alternatives to in hospital care. Anastas, registered nurse and author (Your Career in Nursing), outlines the pros and cons of staying in the hospital, with advice on when in-hospital care is really necessary and suggestions for alternative care. Covered are hospice and home care for terminally ill patients, out-patient surgery, birthing centers and home births, walk-in medical centers, and health maintenance organizations. Anastas also offers good reasons for trashing such quack treatments as laetrile and chelation therapy, while other alternatives, such as acupuncture, are given their due. The author provides much information on costs and insurance, and her arguments for and against various treatments and methods are well thought out and sensible. The only drawback to her guide is Anastas' inclusion of case Studies that could have been taken straight out of a horror film. Perhaps she felt they were necessary to illustrate the worst that hospitals can inflict on patients to make her point, but instead they come dose to discrediting her judgement. In all, though, a sensible guide to the alternatives to in-hospital care, if the reader isn't put off by the gruesome stuff.