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Lewis, Sydney; Ehrenreich, Barbara Hospital: An Oral History of Cook County Hospital
New York, New York, U.S.A. The New Press 1994 1565841387 / 9781565841383 Hard Cover Fine Fine
A photo of this book is available. Like-new condition. Appears unread. NO remainder marks or price clippings. Price insid edustcover: $25.00. NO writing, marks or tears. Tight spine, bright pages. 350 pages. Number line: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. Synopsis The future of medical care is now high on the nation's political agenda, but few understand what it is really like to treat America's ill in the very battle trenches of American medicine. In Hospital, Sydney Lewis, long-time assistant to Studs Terkel, uses Chicago's Cook County Hospital as a telling microcosm of both the human and the social problems we face as a country. Lewis's probing interviews with the widest possible range of people involved in running the hospital - from a former director to an elevator operator, from a security guard to the head of the trauma unit - elicit extraordinary stories and frank assessments of the American medical system in general and Cook County Hospital in particular. Here are the exasperated yet hopeful accounts of the emergency-room doctors who, horrified by the bullet-riddled bodies of the same teenagers month after month, have started an anti-violence education program in the schools. Here is an angry account of the rise of tuberculosis, a disease long thought eliminated, as well as the more familiar tribulations of those dealing with AIDS, drugs, and the other plagues of postindustrial society. Here, too, are older doctors recalling the corrupt and patronage-driven old days, when a note from your alderman was enough to get a job or a few months of bed rest for an obstreperous relative. Annotation Based on interviews w/a resident/clinicians/an elevator operator/police officer/nursing student/administrators/etc. Publishers Weekly These brief, first-person narratives by physicians and other, often international, staff members of Chicago's venerable, 87-year-old Cook County Hospital are recorded and introduced by freelance writer Lewis, a former assistant to Studs Terkel. Eloquently, she demonstrates how needs overwhelm capacity in America's large public hospitals, which ``have become, in effect, a national health care system.'' In emergency, interns and residents practice ``battlefield medicine,'' caring for the mostly minority victims of violence, accidents and social deprivation, with patients serving as ``teaching materials.'' Most of the medical-service employees and patients depicted, from the head of the Pediatrics Trauma Center to a female security guard, share the same dedication to County and yearn for health care reform. A gripping report from the trenches, this is the author's debut book. (Jan.)
Price:
9.78 USD
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