An expert bottoms-up examination of our diseased health care system.
A fierce denunciation of American medicine in which physicians are the heroes—mostly.
Doctors Dean and Talbot, founders of a nonprofit called The Moral Injury of Healthcare, explain that “moral injury” occurs when we experience something that transgresses our beliefs. For doctors, that means the oath to put patients’ needs first. It’s no secret that doctors must now comply with powerful stakeholders in the system, including insurers, hospital administrators, and oppressive regulators, as well as lugubrious electronic medical records. Stories of health care workers suffering “burnout” fill the media, but most blame overwork aggravated by the pandemic. Not so, maintain the authors. The culprit is moral injury, the result of applying aggressive, modern business methods to medical practice. In the introduction, the authors describe a dynamic entrepreneur whose massive hospital earned huge profits by minimizing staff and maximizing testing and services whether necessary or not, and perhaps breaking the law. Finally sent away with a golden parachute, he was replaced by another entrepreneur who promised “significant value for our shareholders.” As the authors demonstrate consistently, hospital executives see themselves as responsible to stockholders, not to physicians or patients. This includes many nonprofits, whose administrators give profits priority and benefit from them. Dean and Talbot profile the work of physicians forced to endure moral injury who then try, sometimes successfully, to find a practice more to their liking. In the final chapter, they deliver a passionate plea for more sensible and better enforced government regulation and more generous reimbursement from public and private insurance. Neither seems on the horizon. Sadly, heartless, assembly-line health care is more profitable than the good kind and, despite lurid stories, only slightly less effective. Doctors and patients hate it, but in a nation that worships the free market, profit is evidence of a well-run institution. Pair this powerful book with an equally painful yet important view from the top: Brian Alexander’s The Hospital.
An expert bottoms-up examination of our diseased health care system.Pub Date: April 4, 2023
ISBN: 9781586423544
Page Count: 306
Publisher: Steerforth
Review Posted Online: Jan. 11, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2023
An above-average celebrity memoir from an intriguing spirit.
The longtime Hollywood actor looks back.
“What does it mean to be a ham?” asks the author, rhetorically. “Was I a ham? I was naturally and inordinately theatrical. I liked to carry on. I liked attention. I liked extravagant speech. I liked to emote. I liked to talk.” All of these qualities are abundantly evident in Kilmer’s memoir, which is as much a spiritual journey as it is a chronicle of his life and career. The author recounts the depth of his Christian Science faith, his formative years in a family of privilege in Los Angeles, his teenage romance with fellow actor Mare Winningham (“my first real girlfriend”), his training and rebellion at Juilliard, and his decision to leave Broadway for Hollywood. There, he writes, “I was not yet a burgeoning talent but ‘Cher’s lover,’ ” when she was in her mid-30s and he in his early-20s. After scoring big with Tom Cruise in Top Gun, Kilmer turned down Blue Velvet and Dirty Dancing: “Neither part spoke to me.” He played Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s The Doors, which he considers “one of the proudest moments of my career.” Marlon Brando and Sam Shepard went from being idols that Kilmer worshipped to becoming friends. He was slated to star as Batman in three films but jumped ship after Batman Forever, which he considers “so bad, it’s almost good.” He married and divorced British actor Joanne Whalley and wooed Daryl Hannah (“kind of the female me, only better”), and he wrote and starred in a one-man show as Mark Twain. When he was hospitalized for surgery due to his throat cancer, he prayed, he read Twain and Christian Science’s Mary Baker Eddy, and he “didn’t wrestle with my angels. I sang and danced with them.” Kilmer was never a shrinking violet, and he still refuses to wilt.
An above-average celebrity memoir from an intriguing spirit. (photos)Pub Date: April 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9821-4489-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 11, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
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