Our Parents in Crisis: Confronting Medical Errors, Ageist Doctors, and Other Healthcare Failings - Hardcover

Ann G. Sjoerdsma

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0615193021 ISBN 13: 9780615193021

Verlag: Improbable Books, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

WINNER OF 2016 BEST BOOK AWARD FOR HEALTH: AGING/50+ IN 13TH ANNUAL USA BOOK NEWS CONTEST

Today's U.S. healthcare system is fragmented, error-prone, and patient-unfriendly, especially for older people, who often see multiple doctors and have multiple medical concerns. You need a survival kit, with a map and compass, in order to learn what the risks are and how to anticipate and avoid them. "Our Parents in Crisis" gives you those tools and the know-how to use them. It also tells a compelling family story that is must reading for all generations, especially the baby boomers and their loved ones.

In 2002, author Ann G. Sjoerdsma nearly lost her seriously ill, 78-year-old mother to medical inertia, missed connections, ageism, incompetence--take your pick, she says. An astute journalist and former practicing lawyer, Sjoerdsma could see that the accepted diagnosis didn't fit her mother's symptoms, even though doctors could--or would--not. Sjoerdsma intervened, challenging medical authority and taking action that resulted in saving her mother's life. The experience was transformative for both mother and daughter: It altered Ann Sjoerdsma's perceptions.

Simply because of aging--because of surviving--she realized, her mother and father, who were highly educated and intelligent physicians, had become vulnerable, and she couldn't trust the system to take good care of them. If they needed protection from healthcare errors, she had to protect them. She had to speak up. She couldn t let a physician's illogic, inaction, avoidance, bigotry, or any other failing or obfuscation within the healthcare system determine the fate of people she dearly loved.

Could you?

Sjoerdsma became a dedicated bedside advocate, representing her parents' interests in all healthcare venues and doing extensive research about medicine, diseases prevalent in older age, anatomy, physiology, and the facts of normal aging, all of which she shares in her impressive book. As her parents experienced more health crises in the ensuing 12 years--a pulmonary embolus; falls leading to hip and leg fractures; botched urological surgery; heart disease--Sjoerdsma witnessed firsthand the many ways that the U.S. healthcare system fails those it serves and how often doctors engage in ageism and what she calls No-Think.

"If a doctor ever asks you, one of your parents, or another older loved one, 'What do you expect at your age?,'" Sjoerdsma writes in the preface to her book, "ask him or her, 'What do you expect?,' and then find another doctor. Life is hard enough without having to put up with ageist nonsense from people who should know better."

"Our Parents in Crisis" is a chock-full-of-medical-information call to action to protect elders from biases and other risks in U.S. healthcare. It is also a poignant family story. Passionate, driven, assertive, and smart, Ann Sjoerdsma fought for her parents, and against her own burnout, initially with success, but later with flagging energy that led to troubling questions. She isn't perfect, but she learns from her mistakes and keeps going.

In a hospital crisis, Sjoerdsma "proceeds until apprehended," which is her family's code phrase for confidently venturing forth, and you can, too. Misdiagnoses are only one of the many hazards in the system: Patient "handoffs" get dropped; medical care lacks continuity; specialists don't communicate with each other; nosocomial (hospital-acquired)infections occur; testing is excessive, etc., etc. In "Our Parents in Crisis," Sjoerdsma prepares you to confront all of them. Her story will empower and inspire you.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Improbable Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0615193021
• ISBN 13: 9780615193021
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Auflage: 1
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar