An intelligent, provocative, and inspiring call to arms for those who simply want relief and a return to normalcy.
An eye-opening look at the current status of those suffering from chronic pain.
Webster’s (Avoid Opioid Abuse While Managing Pain, 2007) first book was geared toward clinicians who prescribe opioids for otherwise intractable pain. Here, the author aims at a much broader readership as he discusses myriad topics involved in pain treatment, such as methadone versus opioid use, societal prejudice toward pain sufferers, the overreaching influence of big pharma, and the complex legal issues and medical conundrums associated with dispensing opioids. Along the way, he cites stupefying facts: “Around 100 to 111 million people in America have chronic pain,” he says, and “the national economic cost associated with chronic pain is estimated to be well north of half a trillion dollars per year.” The book includes compelling stories about several of his own patients, chronicling the path from the moment of injury through the trials and tribulations of various treatment plans. With unwavering compassion and sensitivity, he details some of the heartbreaking ways that chronic pain has affected his patients’ relationships, employment, education, and simple day-to-day living. In addition, he describes how such suffering can complicate family dynamics—often breaking them apart but sometimes drawing them closer. He advocates increased funding for research and providing adequate insurance coverage for those in need: “The fact that 50 percent of all people with chronic pain consider suicide at some point suggests that their pain is not being treated nearly well enough.” He also contends that attitudes toward sufferers must progress from prejudice and stigma to deeper understanding, pointing out that people often view those in pain as “lazy whiners, malingerers, and drug seekers” and that this attitude “is a root cause of the inadequacy of our present pain care system.” He even dramatically relates an incident in which Drug Enforcement Administration agents suddenly showed up at his clinic.
An intelligent, provocative, and inspiring call to arms for those who simply want relief and a return to normalcy.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2015
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Webster Media, LLC
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
© 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
