The Treatment Trap
How the Overuse of Medical Care is Wrecking Your Health and What You Can Do to Prevent It
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
With health reform enacted by the Congress and signed by the President, the subject matter of The Treatment Trap is a compelling component in the national debate. Taking advantage of Rosemary Gibson's knowledge gleaned from extended experience in the field of medical care and Janardan Singh's similar knowledge but from a financial perspective, the authors explore the most neglected issue in American medicine today: the overuse of medical care, including needless surgery and other invasive procedures, out-of-control x-ray imaging, profligate testing, and other wasteful practices that have become routine among too many American doctors. Their combined reporting and analysis concentrates on the human aspects of this disturbing trend in health care, with personal experiences that reflect poorly on hospitals as well as physicians. They show how money spent for questionable and even useless care is diverting major funds that could be better used to treat patients who are genuinely sick and sometimes cannot afford the extravagant charges of the American health-care system. Their suggestions for reforming the delivery of health care, and their cautions to individual consumers about how to deal with situations they may encounter, make The Treatment Trap essential reading for medical care consumers, health-care professionals, and policymakers alike.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Here s a book that might do more than health reform to get readers to question doctors recommendations for medical procedures. Gibson and Singh, who together broached the subject earlier in Wall of Silence, offer tales of patients who have been horrifically sometimes fatally ill-advised by doctors to have unnecessary medical procedures with unexpected complications. One man went for knee replacement surgery to ease his aching legs and died of a heart attack; a fireman was subjected to unnecessary heart bypass surgery; and a South Carolina teen died from complications of an unsafe but slickly marketed new procedure for a mild case of a condition called funnel chest. These cases are numerous and shocking. The solutions are less obvious. The authors cite experts who say the problem is systemic doctors get paid for procedures but suggest that patients can protect themselves by becoming informed consumers. The authors offer no roadmap through the maze of medical decision making, but these warnings are a welcome guide in a process that too often depends on a patient s leap of faith.
