Healthcare – Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

Beholden: Religion, Global Health & Human Rights

By Scott J. Pearson | September 6, 2026September 6, 2026 by Scott J. Pearson

Interactions between culture and religion are fraught with difficulties. Some want to do away with religion altogether. Others welcome religious influences on policy and practice. One thing’s for sure, though: There are always points of both friction and synergy between the two groups. Susan Holman, a scholar in the Christian tradition, examines these interactions in six distinct articles. In so doing, she examines the roots and nature of human rights and the religious value of…

My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey

By Scott J. Pearson | September 5, 2026September 5, 2026 by Scott J. Pearson

What is it like to go through a stroke? Additionally, what’s it like to observe your own stroke if you’re an elite brain scientist? Those two storylines are what Jill Bolte Taylor offers in this short memoir. For those not yet exposed to the internals of how the brain works, it offers an accessible tutorial. Many readers are not accustomed to understanding how different regions of the brain function together to provide a coherent experience…

Healthcare Religion-Philosophy Society

Religion, Spirituality & Public Health: Competing & Complementary Epistemes

By Scott J. Pearson | August 22, 2026August 22, 2026 by Scott J. Pearson

In the COVID-19 pandemic, resistance to modern biomedicine (evidence-based medicine) occurred in droves and presented real problems to public health implementers trying to get us out of infections. Now that the pandemic is over, it’s worth spending time reflecting on how to better handle similar approaches in the future. This volume, from the British Academy, offers such an approach. Its vision is global in scope, not just localized to the British isles. So what’s an…

Healthcare Research-Education Science

Practical Implementation Science: Moving Evidence into Action

By Scott J. Pearson | August 9, 2026August 9, 2026 by Scott J. Pearson

With the Internet, the world has become glut with information, and the domain of scientific knowledge is no exception. The challenge, however, has become implementing that knowledge into healthcare practice. Papers are published, read a few times, cited by other authors, and often die in scientific journals. Those journals are great, but the pipeline to practice (the clinic and patient lives) needs to open up more. Translational science and implementation science aim to do just…

Artificial Intelligence Healthcare

A Giant Leap: How AI is Transforming Healthcare & What That Means for Our Future

By Scott J. Pearson | June 29, 2026June 29, 2026 by Scott J. Pearson

There is no doubt that generative AI is a disruptive technology that will continue to have impacts in the coming years if not decades. Representing one-fifth of the American economy, healthcare is one area where AI has perhaps the most promise to do good. Since much of healthcare runs on textual material, generative AI’s ability to process material and respond appropriately brings a huge “wow” factor. UCSF clinician and informaticist Robert Wachter brings those ideas…

Healthcare History Religion-Philosophy

Medicine & Health Care in Early Christianity

By Scott J. Pearson | June 29, 2026June 29, 2026 by Scott J. Pearson

Historian Gary Ferngren seeks to usurp overly simplistic historical interpretations of Christian attitudes towards healthcare. Many, like the famous church historian Adolf von Harnack, say that the first few centuries of the church were dominated by a healing faith that did not trust physicians. Others posit the early church as having a very antagonistic view to the medicine of the day because they viewed it as pagan. Through copious citations to the primary literature, he…

Healthcare Management-Business Software-Technology

Genentech: The Beginnings of Biotech

By Scott J. Pearson | April 8, 2026April 8, 2026 by Scott J. Pearson

Today, biotech companies are synonymous with high-risk, high-reward research that advances the healthcare and wallets of countries with advanced economies. However, fifty years ago, this type of company did not exist. There were university research labs, and there were big corporations. No startup companies sought to translate the small experiments into lucrative business ventures. Out of Silicon Valley, California, Genentech was one of the first to do so. They translated work in recombinant DNA technology…

Healthcare Management-Business Software-Technology

From Breakthrough to Blockbuster: The Business of Biotechnology

By Scott J. Pearson | April 4, 2026April 4, 2026 by Scott J. Pearson

Biotechnology is a hot topic in today’s global economy. It promises to help humanity, so it often receives startup funding from governments. Success stories show the strong financial potential of the right investments. Big pharmaceutical companies (“big pharma”) can purchase entire companies for large amounts of profits. Yet the risks are great, with an estimated 90% of ventures ending in non-successful outcomes. There seems little that can be done to predict success from the outset.…

Biography-Memoir Healthcare Society

The Cure for Women: Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi & the Challenge to Victorian Medicine That Changed Women’s Lives Forever

By Scott J. Pearson | March 2, 2026March 2, 2026 by Scott J. Pearson

By the end of the Victorian age, men had dominated medical practice for centuries, but women were beginning to make inroads into the profession. A few, Mary Putnam Jacobi being the first, made inroads in European training centers and returned to the US to integrate women into American medicine. In this book, Lydia Reeder narrates their struggle and eventual victory that depathologized being a woman. By pursuing their personal questions, these women physician-scientists brought obstetrics…