At the Front Lines of Medicine

Howard Waitzkin's book represents an important step towards a comprehensive view of what it will take to affect real change in health care. Starting with the narratives and the experiences of real patients-including his own parents-he illuminates the complete inadequacy of the health care system in addressing their needs. He demonstrates convincingly that change is necessary on three levels: a fatally-flawed health system, a sickening socioeconomic order, and doctor-patient relationships that often reinforce the status quo rather than striving to alter it. -- Martin F. Shapiro, MD, Ph.D., professor of medicine and health services and chief, Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research at UCLA At the Front Lines of Medicine gives the reader a front-row seat in the national healthcare debate. Healthleaders Magazine I have never read so diverse and detailed a discussion of health systems and policy, healthcare assessment and delivery, healthcare tensions and context in a single work... Engaging. Contemporary Sociology Waitzkin weaves an engrossing book with material on personal suffering, race and class differences in health status and in access to care, flaws in managed care, health effects of immigration, alternative approaches within the health care system, and social movements to change the whole system. He shows how our health is fundamentally shaped by the underlying inequalities of whatever social system we live under, and he documents how the health care system fails to meet many basic needs, jeopardizes confidentiality, and compromises doctor-patient relationships. Well-written, passionate, and solidly documented, At the Front Lines of Medicine is a valuable contribution. -- Phillip Brown, Brown University