Healthcare – Page 8 – Scott J. Pearson’s Book Review

Review: Making Medical Knowledge

By Scott J. Pearson | July 11, 2019July 11, 2019 by Scott J. Pearson

Epistemology. It’s a big philosophical word that addresses the basic question, how do you know something? It’s a huge and complex question in the world of medicine. How do you know one way is better than another? It applies to individuals approaching diagnoses and treatment plans; it applies to doctors seeking advice about specific diseases; and it applies to researchers seeking to guide collective judgment about possible outcomes. This book tackles this problem head-on with…

Review: The Emperor of All Maladies

By Scott J. Pearson | July 7, 2019July 7, 2019 by Scott J. Pearson

This highly acclaimed work (winning a Pulitzer Prize) deserves every one of its adulations. It is not only personal, erudite, and interesting; it is also inspiring and well-written. Mukherjee attempts to present “a biography of cancer,” starting from its first mention in the historical record (a Queen of Persia). A practicing oncologist, he also ties in patient stories to advance the narrative in appropriate places. Generally, he tells the tale of how humanity and science…

Healthcare

Review: The Laws of Medicine

By Scott J. Pearson | June 14, 2019June 13, 2019 by Scott J. Pearson

Have you ever wondered what makes people orient to their worlds differently? Such is the realm of philosophy. This book attempts to turn medical thought – what makes doctors act the way they do – into a philosophy. Admittedly, it’s just a beginning, but this quick read explains a lot about how healthcare works today. In this short series of essays, Mukherjee defines three “laws.” (1) “A strong intuition is much more powerful than a…

Healthcare History

Review: Polio: An American Story

By Scott J. Pearson | June 10, 2019June 8, 2019 by Scott J. Pearson

When was the last time you heard the word “polio?” It was probably in reference to a vaccine, not the disease. So thoroughly have the effects of polio vaccination been felt that less than 2,000 cases exist each year and only in remote regions of Nigeria, India, and Pakistan. Ridding the world of it forever (in other words, complete eradication, like with smallpox) is in sight. Polio once caused swimming pools and movie theaters to…

Healthcare History

Review: Pox: An American History

By Scott J. Pearson | May 12, 2019May 28, 2019 by Scott J. Pearson

by Michael WillrichPenguin BooksCopyright (c) 2011ISBN13: 9781594202865Page Count: 422 pagesGenre: Non-fiction, history of health When did the current controversy about vaccines really start? According to Willrich’s history, the controversy about vaccines started all the way back with Jenner’s discovery of vaccination. Although smallpox once killed thousands of people each year in America, vaccination against smallpox was still controversial. A small fraction of people had adverse reactions, including death. Obviously, this scared people. It especially scared…

Healthcare Software-Technology

Review: Deep Medicine

By Scott J. Pearson | May 9, 2019May 28, 2019 by Scott J. Pearson

How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare HumanCopyright (c) 2019by Eric Topol The author, an innovative medical school president in California, is one of my favorites on the topic of computing in medicine. He sees the medical landscape wider than most scholars, and he is a true humanist at heart. He surveys the field of artificial intelligence and sees how it could apply to modern medicine. Most of the described projects are pipe dreams now, but…

Healthcare Software-Technology

Review: Machine Learning and AI for Healthcare: Big Data for Improved Health Outcomes

By Scott J. Pearson | March 24, 2019May 28, 2019 by Scott J. Pearson

Machine Learning and AI for Healthcare: Big Data for Improved Health Outcomes by Arjun Panesar My rating: 4 of 5 stars After the first chapter of this book, I was ready to put it down and regret the money I spent on it. It seemed to walk over ground that I’ve already covered as a researcher in medical informatics. Fortunately, I continued, for I came to learn a lot from this author. Although not as…

Books Healthcare Software-Technology

Resources to Explore: Healthcare, Software

By Scott J. Pearson | January 23, 2019 by Scott J. Pearson

Introduction to Natural Language Processing: Concepts and Fundamentals for Beginners by Michael Walker Machine Learning and AI for Healthcare: Big Data for Improved Health Outcomes by Arjun Panesar

Healthcare Humanities

A Journal of the Plague Year

By Scott J. Pearson | November 17, 2018 by Scott J. Pearson

by Daniel DefoeWritten 1722 The years 1665-1666 were rough for London. 1665 brought plague, and 1666 brought a city-wide fire. This book contains a fictionalized account of that plague year of 1665. Defoe, writing 50+ years hence, constructed a narrative based upon research in journals from that era. In providing an account of these interesting times, this book provides several interesting interludes. Like the story of a naked Quaker who walked the streets. Or how…

Healthcare

The Invisible Plague: The Rise of Mental Illness from 1750 to the Present

By Scott J. Pearson | November 4, 2018 by Scott J. Pearson

by E. Fuller Torrey and Judy Miller(c) Copyright 2002. This book, written in part by a psychiatrist with expert knowledge of schizophrenia, addresses the question of why mental illness has become increasingly pervasive since 1750. Starting with this date and proceeding towards the present, Torrey and Miller make a commanding case that the prevalence of mental illness has increased steadily since the age of Enlightenment, at least in English-speaking countries. The argument is forceful. They…