When Alexandra Todd's 21-year-old son is diagnosed with cancer, the family embarks on an odyssey that ultimately steers an expansive course between the gleaming technologies of traditional Western medicine and the gentle arts of alternative healing.

This pioneering work by internationally known physician Dr. James W. Anderson is a quick and easy guide to a healthier lifestyle. Breaking the steps to healthful living into manageable units, Dr. Anderson shows how making the right choices in diet, exercise and relaxation can improve health and reduce risks of major disease.Dr. Anderson's High-Fiber Fitness Plan is an essential handbook for those who want a hassle-free way to fitness and health. It has an enclosed spiral binding that lies flat on the counter with a wipeable cover and plenty of space for notes. The first half of the book is filled with suggestions for health-promoting foods and practices and packed with workbook exercises that allow users to personalize the plan. Practical chapters address topics including: using dietary fiber to fight disease, developing a lifetime plan, losing weight quickly & healthfully, cooking easily, dining outThe second half of the book is filled with more than 150 recipes, most of which take less than fifteen minutes to prepare. Try "Gingered Fruit Dip" on apple wedges and kiwi slices for breakfast or "Unfried Beans" for lunch; savor "Orange Muffins" for a snack or "Homestyle Brisket" for dinner. Offerings include: appetizers, beverages, snacks; fruits and desserts; fish, chicken, and meat; vegetables; salads; soups and sandwiches."I can do that!" sections help readers study their own habits and incorporate positive changes into daily life. Each chapter includes a "chapter action plan" to help readers put new information to use. A handy chart lists calories and fat content for restaurant foods.Through the use of "Jim's Diary," Dr. Anderson charts his own progress and improvement, and, through the success stories of those who have tried his diet and found their lives changed, he provides inspiration. His gentle, humorous style makes self-improvement nearly painless.

Social change has placed new demands on the practice of medicine, altering almost every aspect of patient care relationships. Just as medicine was encouraged to embrace the biological sciences some 100 years ago, recent directives indicate the importance of the social sciences in understanding biomedical practice. Humanistic challenges call for changes in curative and technological imperatives. In this book, social scientists contribute to such challenges by using social evidence to indicate appropriate new goals for health care in a changing environment.This book was designed to stimulate and challenge all those concerned with the human interactions that constitute medical practice. To encompass a wide range of topics, the authors include researchers; practicing physicians from the specialties of family, general, geriatric, pediatric, and oncological medicine; social and behavioral scientists; and public health representatives. Cutting across disciplinary boundaries, they explore the ethical, economic, and social aspects of patient care.These essays draw on past studies of the patient-doctor relationship and generate new and important questions. They address social behavior in patient care as a way to approach theoretical issues pertinent to the social and medical sciences. The authors also use social variables to study patient care and suggest new areas of sociomedical inquiry and new approaches to medical practice, education, and research.Its cross-disciplinary approach and jargon-free writing make this book an important and accessible tool for physician, scholar, and student.

The public health movement in the South began in the wake of a yellow fever epidemic that devastated the lower Mississippi Valley in 1878--a disaster that caused 20,000 deaths and financial losses of nearly $200 million. The full scale of the epidemic and the tentative, troubled southern response to it are for the first time fully examined by John Ellis in this new book.At the national level, southern congressional leaders fought to establish a strong federal health agency, but they were defeated by the young American Public Health Association, which defended states' rights. Local responses and results were mixed. In New Orleans, business and professional men, reacting to the denunciation of the city as the nation's pesthole, organized in 1879 to improve drainage, garbage disposal, and water supplies through voluntary subscription. Their achievements were of necessity modest.In Memphis--the city hardest hit by the epidemic--a new municipal government in 1879 helped form the first regional health organization and during the 1880s led the nation in sanitary improvements. In Atlanta, though it largely escaped the epidemic, the Constitution and some citizens called for health reform. Ironically their voices were drowned out by ritual invocation of local health mythology and by unabashed exploitation of the stigma of pestilence attached to New Orleans and Memphis. By 1890 Atlanta rivaled Charleston and Richmond for primacy in black mortality rates.That the public health movement met with only limited success Ellis attributes to the prevailing atmosphere of opportunistic greed, overwhelming debt, economic instability, and inordinate political corruption. But the effort to combat a terrifying disease not fully understood did eventually produce changes and the vastly improved health systems of today.

This volume is the first to explore broadly many important theoretical and applied issues concerning the mental health of Appalachians. The authors -- anthropologists, psychologists, social workers and others -- overturn many assumptions held by earlier writers, who have tended to see Appalachia and its people as being dominated by a culture of poverty.While the heterogeneity of the region is acknowledged in the diversity of sub-areas and populations discussed, dominant themes emerge concerning Appalachia as a whole. The result of the authors' varied approaches is a cumulative portrait of a strong regional culture with native support systems based on family, community, and religion.Some of the contributors examine therapeutic approaches, including family therapy, that consider the implications of the cultural context. Others explore the impact of Appalachian culture on the impact of Appalachian culture on the development of mental health problems and coping skills and the resulting potential for conflict between Appalachian clients and non-Appalachian health providers. Still others examine cultural considerations in therapeutic encounters and mental health service delivery. The book is rich in case studies and empirical data. The practical, applied nature of the essays will enhance their value for practitioners seeking ways to improve mental health care in the region.