★★★★★ 5
A soaring indictment of what really needs to be reformed in American health care
Format: Paperback
Dr. Brawley has achieved something rare in a non- fiction work. He has combined his clear passion for medicine with a fair but brutal portrayal of what is terribly wrong with our system as it presently stands. Dr. Brawley is highly credentialed and has over 30 years experience in his craft, yet he writes with a balance of humility and moral outrage that is rare in this type of work. I have been in healthcare for over 20 years and have watched horrified as the system has become more, not less broken and ineffectual while at the same time knowing that no American can really know the gaping problems of pharmacuetical companies offering medicines that have questionable merit and do real harm, the multi "tier" system of care where in general the wealthy recieve MORE care, but not necessarily better care and are often over treated for pure profit and the horrific truths about incopetent and dangerous physicians and systems allowed to treat patients while no one dares to ask for QA. "How We Harm" addresses the issues every consumer of medical services need to understand before they or someone they love becomes sick.
Sadly some of the families I care for only discover how broken the system is at the moment of their greatest vulnerability- when a family member or themselves become very ill and they are left to fight insurers, billing departments and conflicting prognosises and treatment plans without a rational, science based resource to ensure they are making the right choices. Dr. Brawley describes how the "system" as it currently stands seems to know that sick consumers can not fight for their rights, and are often too frightened and overwhelmed to even ask the right questions when they face major medical decisions. Insurers will be held more accountable after ACA full implementaion in 2014, but this is clearly not enough to fix the systems that you and I the taxpayer supplement when big pharma and for profit medicine have taken all the meager resources that many Americans have to pay for their co-pays and expensive treatments for serious illness. The "system" knows that eventually Medicaid will take over payment for these desperate patients. The case illustrations Dr. Brawley presents are fair and deadly accurate. I see similar terrible outcomes all the time.
The book also describes aspects of caring for the 'under served' that are spirtually affirming and make this book a very positive read for that reason alone.Dr. Brawley clearly loves to teach medical students as well and he he even seems to love his patients- a rare but amazing quality in a physician.
Dr. Brawley is a national voice of reason and passion for making things right. I look forward to his next
move as a leader in American medical reform.
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Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2013

