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Eddie Olczyk: Beating the Odds in Hockey and in Life
Par Eddie Olczyk, Perry Lefko. 2019
Eddie Olczyk had built a life and career most people could only dream of. Growing up in the suburbs of…
Chicago, he fell in love with the game of hockey during an era when most kids preferred balls to pucks. Against all odds, he played on the 1984 U.S. Olympic hockey team as a 17-year-old, and four months later he was drafted in the first round by his hometown Chicago Blackhawks. During an illustrious 16-year career, he played for and alongside some of the greatest franchises and players in history, winning a Stanley Cup with the unforgettable 1994 New York Rangers. Years later, he coached former teammate Mario Lemieux and Sidney Crosby on the Pittsburgh Penguins before transitioning into the broadcast booth, where he has become one of the most recognizable voices of the sport. He then combined his skills as an analyst with his second passion— horse racing—and became an integral part of NBC’s coverage of thoroughbreds. Away from the spotlight, Olczyk and his wife of three decades raised four adoring children. He was respected and admired by fans, friends, and peers. Life was sweet. Then, at 7:07 pm on August 4, 2017, his entire world turned upside down. In Eddie Olczyk: Beating the Odds in Hockey and in Life, one of the biggest names in American hockey has written an inspiring and entertaining memoir of his life both on and off the ice. From shooting hundreds of tennis balls at a goal in his childhood living room to the ups and downs of his improbable hockey career to rollicking stories from the booth and the backstretch, Olczyk guides readers on his journey toward his ultimate test: a battle against Stage 3 colon cancer. For years, Olczyk’s goal was to be the best husband, father, broadcaster, and handicapper he could be. Today he has a new one: to bring as much awareness and support to those fighting cancer as he possibly can. In this emotional but often hilarious autobiography, you’ll learn why the people who know Eddie Olczyk best might describe him as “tremendously tremendous.”A Bucket of Stars
Par Suri Rosen. 2023
A story of two kids trying to save the world they know and heal the families they have.It’s the summer…
of 2003 and thirteen-year-old astronomer Noah Cooper has just moved to Queensport, a small town with a vast amateur sky full of stars. There he meets Tara Dhillon, a lonely girl and aspiring filmmaker. When the two team up to produce an astronomy movie and enter a film contest, they discover a secret plan to turn their rural hamlet into a huge subdivision.Noah and Tara must use their unique skills to identify the culprits who plan on paving over the historic county — and try to save the infinite beauty of the stars. As if that’s not enough to have at stake, Noah needs to win the prize money to buy a new telescope for his unemployed father — an ex-astronomer who’s almost given up on the stars, as well as life on earth.Touching on themes of activism, environmental anxiety and mental health, A Bucket of Stars will have readers cheering for Noah, a boy whose head is in the stars, and Tara, a girl who lives in a world of digital images — and their special bond that just might mend the world around them.The Probability of Everything
Par Sarah Everett. 2023
“One of the best books I have read this year (maybe ever).” —Colby Sharp, Nerdy Book ClubNPR Books We Love…
2023 | Publishers Weekly Best of 2023 | Winner of the Governor General's Literary Awards for Young People's LiteratureA heart-wrenching middle grade debut about Kemi, an aspiring scientist who loves statistics and facts, as she navigates grief and loss at a moment when life as she knows it changes forever.Eleven-year-old Kemi Carter loves scientific facts, specifically probability. It's how she understands the world and her place in it. Kemi knows her odds of being born were 1 in 5.5 trillion and that the odds of her having the best family ever were even lower. Yet somehow, Kemi lucked out.But everything Kemi thought she knew changes when she sees an asteroid hover in the sky, casting a purple haze over her world. Amplus-68 has an 84.7% chance of colliding with earth in four days, and with that collision, Kemi’s life as she knows it will end.But over the course of the four days, even facts don’t feel true to Kemi anymore. The new town she moved to that was supposed to be “better for her family” isn’t very welcoming. And Amplus-68 is taking over her life, but others are still going to school and eating at their favorite diner like nothing has changed. Is Kemi the only one who feels like the world is ending?With the days numbered, Kemi decides to put together a time capsule that will capture her family’s truth: how creative her mother is, how inquisitive her little sister can be, and how much Kemi's whole world revolves around her father. But no time capsule can change the truth behind all of it, that Kemi must face the most inevitable and hardest part of life: saying goodbye."My heart hurt as I raced through the last chapters of this unique book that shines a light on family, friends, grief, and love." —Lisa Yee, author of Maizy Chen's Last ChanceKunoichi bunny
Par Sara Cassidy. 2022
Production note: This title was created through eBOUND's Literary Image Description project. The author and illustrator wrote or consulted on…
the image descriptions, which are included in the body and narration of the text. "In this amusing wordless picture book, a young toddler uses her stuffed bunny to perform a number of daring acts."Looking Inside the Brain: The Power of Neuroimaging
Par Denis Le Bihan. 2015
The remarkable story of how today's brain scanning techniques were developed, told by one of the field's pioneersIt is now…
possible to witness human brain activity while we are talking, reading, or thinking, thanks to revolutionary neuroimaging techniques like magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). These groundbreaking advances have opened infinite fields of investigation—into such areas as musical perception, brain development in utero, and faulty brain connections leading to psychiatric disorders—and have raised unprecedented ethical issues. In Looking Inside the Brain, one of the leading pioneers of the field, Denis Le Bihan, offers an engaging account of the sophisticated interdisciplinary research in physics, neuroscience, and medicine that have led to the remarkable neuroimaging methods that give us a detailed look into the human brain.Introducing neurological anatomy and physiology, Le Bihan walks readers through the historical evolution of imaging technology—from the x-ray and CT scan to the PET scan and MRI—and he explains how neuroimaging uncovers afflictions like stroke or cancer and the workings of higher-order brain activities, such as language skills. Le Bihan also takes readers on a behind-the-scenes journey through NeuroSpin, his state-of-the-art neuroimaging laboratory, and goes over the cutting-edge scanning devices currently being developed. Considering what we see when we look at brain images, Le Bihan weighs what might be revealed about our thoughts and unconscious, and discusses how far this technology might go in the future.Beautifully illustrated in color, Looking Inside the Brain presents the trailblazing story of the scanning techniques that provide keys to previously unimagined knowledge of our brains and our selves.When Experiments Travel: Clinical Trials and the Global Search for Human Subjects
Par Adriana Petryna. 2009
The phenomenal growth of global pharmaceutical sales and the quest for innovation are driving an unprecedented search for human test…
subjects, particularly in middle- and low-income countries. Our hope for medical progress increasingly depends on the willingness of the world's poor to participate in clinical drug trials. While these experiments often provide those in need with vital and previously unattainable medical resources, the outsourcing and offshoring of trials also create new problems. In this groundbreaking book, anthropologist Adriana Petryna takes us deep into the clinical trials industry as it brings together players separated by vast economic and cultural differences. Moving between corporate and scientific offices in the United States and research and public health sites in Poland and Brazil, When Experiments Travel documents the complex ways that commercial medical science, with all its benefits and risks, is being integrated into local health systems and emerging drug markets. Providing a unique perspective on globalized clinical trials, When Experiments Travel raises central questions: Are such trials exploitative or are they social goods? How are experiments controlled and how is drug safety ensured? And do these experiments help or harm public health in the countries where they are conducted? Empirically rich and theoretically innovative, the book shows that neither the language of coercion nor that of rational choice fully captures the range of situations and value systems at work in medical experiments today. When Experiments Travel challenges conventional understandings of the ethics and politics of transnational science and changes the way we think about global medicine and the new infrastructures of our lives.Superstition: Belief in the Age of Science
Par Robert L. Park. 2008
Why the battle between superstition and science is far from overFrom uttering a prayer before boarding a plane, to exploring…
past lives through hypnosis, has superstition become pervasive in contemporary culture? Robert Park, the best-selling author of Voodoo Science, argues that it has. In Superstition, Park asks why people persist in superstitious convictions long after science has shown them to be ill-founded. He takes on supernatural beliefs from religion and the afterlife to New Age spiritualism and faith-based medical claims. He examines recent controversies and concludes that science is the only way we have of understanding the world.Park sides with the forces of reason in a world of continuing and, he fears, increasing superstition. Chapter by chapter, he explains how people too easily mistake pseudoscience for science. He discusses parapsychology, homeopathy, and acupuncture; he questions the existence of souls, the foundations of intelligent design, and the power of prayer; he asks for evidence of reincarnation and astral projections; and he challenges the idea of heaven. Throughout, he demonstrates how people's blind faith, and their confidence in suspect phenomena and remedies, are manipulated for political ends. Park shows that science prevails when people stop fooling themselves.Compelling and precise, Superstition takes no hostages in its quest to provoke. In shedding light on some very sensitive--and Park would say scientifically dubious--issues, the book is sure to spark discussion and controversy.Natural Products and Nano-Formulations in Cancer Chemoprevention (Advances in Bionanotechnology)
Par Shiv Kumar Dubey. 2023
This book covers various aspects of cancer chemoprevention, including an overview of chemoprevention in the process of tumorigenesis; the roles…
of various phytochemicals, functional foods, and dietary interventions in disease prevention; and techniques such as cancer stem cell targeting, nano-formulations, and so forth. The nutrigenomic and epigenetic effects of natural products at the molecular and genetic levels are also covered alongside their potential for additive and synergistic effect, as well as overcoming drug resistance. The key selling features of the book are as follows: Discusses holistic and comprehensive areas of chemoprevention Includes diverse techniques, such as cancer stem cell targeting, nano-formulations, and nanotechnology-based drug delivery systems Introduces various mechanisms involved in prevention of the diseases, including targeting cancer stem cells Reviews various aspects which can reduce the toxicity and cost of treatment of diseases by alternative medicine Explores various sources, mechanisms, and ways to develop cancer chemopreventive agents with minimal toxicity compared to traditional cancer therapy drugs This book is focused on researchers and graduate students in drug delivery and formulation, nanobiotechnology, cancer chemoprevention, prevention, and therapeutics.Leukaemia Diagnosis
Par Barbara J. Bain, Mike Leach. 2024
Leukaemia Diagnosis Authoritative reference on classifying and diagnosing leukaemia, with practical guidance on using various laboratory techniques included Leukaemia Diagnosis…
is a practical reference on the principles of leukaemia diagnosis and classification that illustrates and explains in a user-friendly way how different laboratory techniques are used to achieve an accurate interpretation. To aid in reader comprehension, over 300 high quality full colour digital images of abnormal cells in leukaemia and lymphoma are included, supplemented by histological, cytogenetic and immunophenotyping images. This newly revised and updated Sixth Edition includes recent developments, highlights the growing importance of molecular genetics, and incorporates the recent 5th edition of the WHO guidelines and the International Consensus Classification for leukaemia diagnosis and classification throughout the text. Information on cytogenetic and molecular genetic abnormalities in leukaemia is also included, along with characteristic immunophenotypic characteristics of different categories of leukaemia. Written by world-renowned authors in the field, Barbara Bain and Mike Leach, Leukaemia Diagnosis covers sample topics such as: The nature of leukaemia, cytology, cytochemistry, and the morphological classification of acute leukaemia, with an index of commonly used abbreviations Immunophenotyping and cytogenetic/molecular genetic analysis, and integration of morphological, immunophenotypic and genetic information with the WHO classifications Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, acute leukaemia of ambiguous lineage, and the myelodysplastic syndromes and myelodysplastic/myeloproliferative neoplasms Chronic myeloid leukaemias, lymphoid leukaemias of mature B, T, and natural killer cells, and leukaemia diagnosis in resource-poor countries The Sixth Edition of Leukaemia Diagnosis is a highly valuable resource for trainee haematologists and laboratory scientists in haematology and related disciplines. The text also serves as a useful reference and teaching aid for those who already have expertise in this field.Vital Pulp Treatment
Par Henry F. Duncan, Ikhlas A. El-Karim. 2024
Vital Pulp Treatment A comprehensive reference work covering all aspects of vital pulp treatments in clinical practice Vital Pulp Treatment…
offers a comprehensive overview of existing and developing vital pulp therapies, the science that underpins them as well as their clinical applications. Preserving dental pulp tissue is critical to oral health and vital pulp treatments are designed to maintain, repair, and regenerate this tissue. With a focus on clinical practice, this book begins with the diagnosis and causes of pulpitis before elaborating on the application of vital pulp treatment after trauma, caries, or dental procedures. Later chapters cover a variety of extent treatment modalities including caries removal, pulpotomy, direct or indirect pulp capping and regenerative endodontic therapies. Vital Pulp Treatment readers will also find: Clinical photographs to support and highlight key parts of the text Detailed discussion of topics including pulp diagnostics, deep caries, and pulp exposure management, as well as controversial and clinically relevant discussions Dedicated treatment of each therapeutic modality with a summary of the state of the art in each caseOutcome measures and follow-up guidelines Rooted in evidence-based dentistry and robust scientific research, Vital Pulp Treatment is ideal for dentists, endodontists, restorative dentists, and dental students looking for information on this critical component of modern minimally-invasive dentistry.The New Arab Man: Emergent Masculinities, Technologies, and Islam in the Middle East
Par Marcia C. Inhorn. 2012
Middle Eastern Muslim men have been widely vilified as terrorists, religious zealots, and brutal oppressors of women. The New Arab…
Man challenges these stereotypes with the stories of ordinary Middle Eastern men as they struggle to overcome infertility and childlessness through assisted reproduction. Drawing on two decades of ethnographic research across the Middle East with hundreds of men from a variety of social and religious backgrounds, Marcia Inhorn shows how the new Arab man is self-consciously rethinking the patriarchal masculinity of his forefathers and unseating received wisdoms. This is especially true in childless Middle Eastern marriages where, contrary to popular belief, infertility is more common among men than women. Inhorn captures the marital, moral, and material commitments of couples undergoing assisted reproduction, revealing how new technologies are transforming their lives and religious sensibilities. And she looks at the changing manhood of husbands who undertake transnational "egg quests"--set against the backdrop of war and economic uncertainty--out of devotion to the infertile wives they love. Trenchant and emotionally gripping, The New Arab Man traces the emergence of new masculinities in the Middle East in the era of biotechnology.Mathematical Tools for Understanding Infectious Disease Dynamics (Princeton Series in Theoretical and Computational Biology #7)
Par Odo Diekmann, Hans Heesterbeek, Tom Britton. 2013
Mathematical modeling is critical to our understanding of how infectious diseases spread at the individual and population levels. This book…
gives readers the necessary skills to correctly formulate and analyze mathematical models in infectious disease epidemiology, and is the first treatment of the subject to integrate deterministic and stochastic models and methods.Mathematical Tools for Understanding Infectious Disease Dynamics fully explains how to translate biological assumptions into mathematics to construct useful and consistent models, and how to use the biological interpretation and mathematical reasoning to analyze these models. It shows how to relate models to data through statistical inference, and how to gain important insights into infectious disease dynamics by translating mathematical results back to biology. This comprehensive and accessible book also features numerous detailed exercises throughout; full elaborations to all exercises are provided.Covers the latest research in mathematical modeling of infectious disease epidemiologyIntegrates deterministic and stochastic approachesTeaches skills in model construction, analysis, inference, and interpretationFeatures numerous exercises and their detailed elaborationsMotivated by real-world applications throughoutMathematics for the Life Sciences
Par Erin N. Bodine, Suzanne Lenhart, Louis J. Gross. 2014
An accessible undergraduate textbook on the essential math concepts used in the life sciencesThe life sciences deal with a vast…
array of problems at different spatial, temporal, and organizational scales. The mathematics necessary to describe, model, and analyze these problems is similarly diverse, incorporating quantitative techniques that are rarely taught in standard undergraduate courses. This textbook provides an accessible introduction to these critical mathematical concepts, linking them to biological observation and theory while also presenting the computational tools needed to address problems not readily investigated using mathematics alone.Proven in the classroom and requiring only a background in high school math, Mathematics for the Life Sciences doesn't just focus on calculus as do most other textbooks on the subject. It covers deterministic methods and those that incorporate uncertainty, problems in discrete and continuous time, probability, graphing and data analysis, matrix modeling, difference equations, differential equations, and much more. The book uses MATLAB throughout, explaining how to use it, write code, and connect models to data in examples chosen from across the life sciences.Provides undergraduate life science students with a succinct overview of major mathematical concepts that are essential for modern biologyCovers all the major quantitative concepts that national reports have identified as the ideal components of an entry-level course for life science studentsProvides good background for the MCAT, which now includes data-based and statistical reasoningExplicitly links data and math modelingIncludes end-of-chapter homework problems, end-of-unit student projects, and select answers to homework problemsUses MATLAB throughout, and MATLAB m-files with an R supplement are available onlinePrepares students to read with comprehension the growing quantitative literature across the life sciencesA solutions manual for professors and an illustration package is availableThe Politics of Precaution examines the politics of consumer and environmental risk regulation in the United States and Europe over…
the last five decades, explaining why America and Europe have often regulated a wide range of similar risks differently. It finds that between 1960 and 1990, American health, safety, and environmental regulations were more stringent, risk averse, comprehensive, and innovative than those adopted in Europe. But since around 1990, the book shows, global regulatory leadership has shifted to Europe. What explains this striking reversal? David Vogel takes an in-depth, comparative look at European and American policies toward a range of consumer and environmental risks, including vehicle air pollution, ozone depletion, climate change, beef and milk hormones, genetically modified agriculture, antibiotics in animal feed, pesticides, cosmetic safety, and hazardous substances in electronic products. He traces how concerns over such risks--and pressure on political leaders to do something about them--have risen among the European public but declined among Americans. Vogel explores how policymakers in Europe have grown supportive of more stringent regulations while those in the United States have become sharply polarized along partisan lines. And as European policymakers have grown more willing to regulate risks on precautionary grounds, increasingly skeptical American policymakers have called for higher levels of scientific certainty before imposing additional regulatory controls on business.The Alzheimer Conundrum: Entanglements of Dementia and Aging
Par Margaret Lock. 2013
Why our approaches to Alzheimer's and dementia are problematic and contradictoryDue to rapidly aging populations, the number of people worldwide…
experiencing dementia is increasing, and the projections are grim. Despite billions of dollars invested in medical research, no effective treatment has been discovered for Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia. The Alzheimer Conundrum exposes the predicaments embedded in current efforts to slow down or halt Alzheimer’s disease through early detection of pre-symptomatic biological changes in healthy individuals.Based on a meticulous account of the history of Alzheimer’s disease and extensive in-depth interviews, Margaret Lock highlights the limitations and the dissent associated with biomarker detection. Lock argues that basic research must continue, but should be complemented by a public health approach to prevention that is economically feasible, more humane, and much more effective globally than one exclusively focused on an increasingly harried search for a cure.What's Eating You?: People and Parasites
Par Eugene H. Kaplan. 2010
Everything you ever wanted to know about parasites but were too horrified to askIn What's Eating You? Eugene Kaplan recounts…
the true and harrowing tales of his adventures with parasites, and in the process introduces readers to the intimately interwoven lives of host and parasite.Kaplan has spent his life traveling the globe exploring oceans and jungles, and incidentally acquiring parasites in his gut. Here, he leads readers on an unforgettable journey into the bizarre yet oddly beautiful world of parasites. In a narrative that is by turns frightening, disgusting, and laugh-out-loud funny, Kaplan describes how drinking contaminated water can cause a three-foot-long worm to burst from your arm; how he "gave birth" to a parasite the size and thickness of a pencil while working in Israel; why you should never wave a dead snake in front of your privates; and why fleas are attracted to his wife. Kaplan tells stories about leeches feasting on soldiers in Vietnam; sea cucumbers with teeth in their anuses that seem to encourage the entry of symbiotic fish; the habits of parasites that cause dysentery, river blindness, and other horrifying diseases--and much, much more. Along the way, he explains the underlying science, including parasite evolution and host-parasite physiology.Informative, frequently lurid, and hugely entertaining, this beautifully illustrated book is a must-read for health-conscious travelers, and anyone who has ever wondered if they picked up a tapeworm from that last sushi dinner.Pox Romana: The Plague That Shook the Roman World (Turning Points in Ancient History #15)
Par Colin Elliott. 2024
A wide-ranging and dramatic account of the Antonine plague, the mysterious disease that struck the Roman Empire at its pinnacleIn…
the middle of the second century AD, Rome was at its prosperous and powerful apex. The emperor Marcus Aurelius reigned over a vast territory that stretched from Britain to Egypt. The Roman-made peace, or Pax Romana, seemed to be permanent. Then, apparently out of nowhere, a sudden sickness struck the legions and laid waste to cities, including Rome itself. This fast-spreading disease, now known as the Antonine plague, may have been history&’s first pandemic. Soon after its arrival, the Empire began its downward trajectory toward decline and fall. In Pox Romana, historian Colin Elliott offers a comprehensive, wide-ranging account of this pivotal moment in Roman history.Did a single disease—its origins and diagnosis still a mystery—bring Rome to its knees? Carefully examining all the available evidence, Elliott shows that Rome&’s problems were more insidious. Years before the pandemic, the thin veneer of Roman peace and prosperity had begun to crack: the economy was sluggish, the military found itself bogged down in the Balkans and the Middle East, food insecurity led to riots and mass migration, and persecution of Christians intensified. The pandemic exposed the crumbling foundations of a doomed Empire. Arguing that the disease was both cause and effect of Rome&’s fall, Elliott describes the plague&’s &“preexisting conditions&” (Rome&’s multiple economic, social, and environmental susceptibilities); recounts the history of the outbreak itself through the experiences of physician, victim, and political operator; and explores postpandemic crises. The pandemic&’s most transformative power, Elliott suggests, may have been its lingering presence as a threat both real and perceived.The Nature of Nutrition: A Unifying Framework from Animal Adaptation to Human Obesity
Par Stephen J. Simpson, David Raubenheimer. 2012
The first book to address nutrition's complex role in biologyNutrition has long been considered more the domain of medicine and…
agriculture than of the biological sciences, yet it touches and shapes all aspects of the natural world. The need for nutrients determines whether wild animals thrive, how populations evolve and decline, and how ecological communities are structured. The Nature of Nutrition is the first book to address nutrition's enormously complex role in biology, both at the level of individual organisms and in their broader ecological interactions.Stephen Simpson and David Raubenheimer provide a comprehensive theoretical approach to the analysis of nutrition—the Geometric Framework. They show how it can help us to understand the links between nutrition and the biology of individual animals, including the physiological mechanisms that determine the nutritional interactions of the animal with its environment, and the consequences of these interactions in terms of health, immune responses, and lifespan. Simpson and Raubenheimer explain how these effects translate into the collective behavior of groups and societies, and in turn influence food webs and the structure of ecosystems. Then they demonstrate how the Geometric Framework can be used to tackle issues in applied nutrition, such as the problem of optimizing diets for livestock and endangered species, and how it can also help to address the epidemic of human obesity and metabolic disease.Drawing on a wealth of examples from slime molds to humans, The Nature of Nutrition has important applications in ecology, evolution, and physiology, and offers promising solutions for human health, conservation, and agriculture.Selling Our Souls: The Commodification of Hospital Care in the United States
Par Adam Dalton Reich. 2014
Health care costs make up nearly a fifth of U.S. gross domestic product, but health care is a peculiar thing…
to buy and sell. Both a scarce resource and a basic need, it involves physical and emotional vulnerability and at the same time it operates as big business. Patients have little choice but to trust those who provide them care, but even those providers confront a great deal of medical uncertainty about the services they offer. Selling Our Souls looks at the contradictions inherent in one particular health care market—hospital care. Based on extensive interviews and observations across the three hospitals of one California city, the book explores the tensions embedded in the market for hospital care, how different hospitals manage these tensions, the historical trajectories driving disparities in contemporary hospital practice, and the perils and possibilities of various models of care.As Adam Reich shows, the book's three featured hospitals could not be more different in background or contemporary practice. PubliCare was founded in the late nineteenth century as an almshouse in order to address the needs of the destitute. HolyCare was founded by an order of nuns in the mid-twentieth century, offering spiritual comfort to the paying patient. And GroupCare was founded in the late twentieth century to rationalize and economize care for middle-class patients and their employers. Reich explains how these legacies play out today in terms of the hospitals' different responses to similar market pressures, and the varieties of care that result.Selling Our Souls is an in-depth investigation into how hospital organizations and the people who work in them make sense of and respond to the modern health care market.The Economic Evolution of American Health Care: From Marcus Welby to Managed Care
Par David Dranove. 2000
The American health care industry has undergone such dizzying transformations since the 1960s that many patients have lost confidence in…
a system they find too impersonal and ineffectual. Is their distrust justified and can confidence be restored? David Dranove, a leading health care economist, tackles these and other key questions in the first major economic and historical investigation of the field. Focusing on the doctor-patient relationship, he begins with the era of the independently practicing physician--epitomized by Marcus Welby, the beloved father figure/doctor in the 1960s television show of the same name--who disappeared with the growth of managed care. Dranove guides consumers in understanding the rapid developments of the health care industry and offers timely policy recommendations for reforming managed care as well as advice for patients making health care decisions. The book covers everything from start-up troubles with the first managed care organizations to attempts at government regulation to the mergers and quality control issues facing MCOs today. It also reflects on how difficult it is for patients to shop for medical care. Up until the 1970s, patients looked to autonomous physicians for recommendations on procedures and hospitals--a process that relied more on the patient's trust of the physician than on facts, and resulted in skyrocketing medical costs. Newly emerging MCOs have tried to solve the shopping problem by tracking the performance of care providers while obtaining discounts for their clients. Many observers accuse MCOs of caring more about cost than quality, and argue for government regulation. Dranove, however, believes that market forces can eventually achieve quality care and cost control. But first, MCOs must improve their ways of measuring provider performance, medical records must be made more complete and accessible (a task that need not compromise patient confidentiality), and patients must be willing to seek and act on information about the best care available. Dranove argues that patients can regain confidence in the medical system, and even come to trust MCOs, but they will need to rely on both their individual doctors and their own consumer awareness.