Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 336
•
Trim: 6½ x 9½
978-1-5381-2162-7 • Hardback • March 2020 • $36.00 • (£30.00)
978-1-5381-2163-4 • eBook • March 2020 • $34.00 • (£25.00)
Steven Kussin, MD, is a physician, author, television commentator, and a pioneer in the Shared Decision movement. He founded and led his clinical practice for three decades. He then wrote, Doctor, Your Patient Will See You Now: Gaining the upper hand in your medical care (Rowman & Littlefield). He founded The Shared Decision Center in Central New York. It was one of the first private independent practices of its type in the country and served consumers across the nation. He retired from his center in 2015.
Acknowledgments
Introduction: The Slope
Chapter 1: Your Money or Your Life: Profit, Greed, and the Healthcare Colossus
Chapter 2: Science in Healthcare: The Beast Wears White
Chapter 3: Doctors—Love Them, Hate Them: You Can’t Live Without Them (or Can You?)
Chapter 4: YOU!
Chapter 5: Screening: Don’t Say No; Just Say Whoa!
Chapter 6: TV vs. MD
Chapter 7: Shared Decision Making
Notes
Index
About the Author
. . .an empowering compendium of health-care advice, focused on the pitfalls of overdiagnosis. Though Kussin places blame on health-care providers for pushing unnecessary care—and on patients for demanding it—he isn’t aiming for exposé or outrage, but rather to arm readers with the tools for better decision making. . . . His affable, enthusiastic guide will leave readers feeling smart, informed, and better prepared for taking a nonalarmist and responsible approach to their own health.
— Publishers Weekly
Kussin advises that patients seek medical information from free, legitimate resources like MedPage Today and Medline Plus. We should also pay attention to which screening tests save lives, and be your own advocate. Before saying yes to what might seem like the latest miracle treatment, Kussin writes, think about “mighty forces” like the stature of doctors before saying “yes” to the latest exam or prescription. Cautionary and empowering.
— Booklist
This is one of the best healthcare books I've read in years: Clear, provocative, empowering and often funny, The Slippery Slope of Healthcare offers a much-needed dose of honesty in a healthcare industry that often confuses, bullies and overwhelms. You don't have to be a patient to pick up this book. This one should be read by anyone who's interested in learning how to be a good advocate for a loved one.
— Mackenzie Dawson, New York Post
Dr. Steven Z. Kussin is that extraordinary rarity: a writer on a professional, often technical, subject who writes in a clear, accessible, entertaining—and, of all things, witty—style. His new book, The Slippery Slope of Healthcare: Why Bad Things Happen to Healthy Patients and How to Avoid Them, is both a timely wake-up call on how to avoid the many pitfalls of unnecessary and sometimes even dangerous health "care," and a stylistic joy to read. "Much of our accumulated medical wisdom," he writes, "is out of date, out of the question, or created out of the blue by bad evidence." He thereby primes us for his critical analysis of much of today's "healthcare for the well." He also makes this reader say, "Man, I wish I had written that sentence!" After reading The Slippery Slope of Healthcare, you'll never think about medical advice in quite the same way again.
— Thomas Cathcart, co-author with Daniel Klein of the New York Times bestseller, “Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes”
Steven Kussin has written a truly funny and forthright book about a sad and serious reality – how healthy people are made to worry that they might be unhealthy and end up losing their health in the process. There is much to learn in this book about how to survive in the surprisingly evidence-free, pro-profit U.S. health care system populated by many doctors who don’t understand health statistics.
— Gerd Gigerenzer, Director, Harding Center for Risk Literacy, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin