Skip to content

Ordinary Medicine: Extraordinary Treatments, Longer Lives, and Where to Draw the
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

Ordinary Medicine: Extraordinary Treatments, Longer Lives, and Where to Draw the Line Hardcover - 2015 - 1st Edition

by Sharon R. Kaufman

From the publisher

Most of us want and expect medicine's miracles to extend our lives. In today's aging society, however, the line between life-giving therapies and too much treatment is hard to see--it's being obscured by a perfect storm created by the pharmaceutical and biomedical industries, along with insurance companies. In Ordinary Medicine Sharon R. Kaufman investigates what drives that storm's "more is better" approach to medicine: a nearly invisible chain of social, economic, and bureaucratic forces that has made once-extraordinary treatments seem ordinary, necessary, and desirable. Since 2002 Kaufman has listened to hundreds of older patients, their physicians and family members express their hopes, fears, and reasoning as they faced the line between enough and too much intervention. Their stories anchor Ordinary Medicine. Today's medicine, Kaufman contends, shapes nearly every American's experience of growing older, and ultimately medicine is undermining its own ability to function as a social good. Kaufman's careful mapping of the sources of our health care dilemmas should make it far easier to rethink and renew medicine's goals.

Details

  • Title Ordinary Medicine: Extraordinary Treatments, Longer Lives, and Where to Draw the Line
  • Author Sharon R. Kaufman
  • Binding Hardcover
  • Edition number 1st
  • Edition 1
  • Pages 336
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Duke University Press
  • Date 2015-05-29
  • Features Bibliography, Index
  • ISBN 9780822359029 / 0822359022
  • Weight 1.2 lbs (0.54 kg)
  • Dimensions 9.3 x 6.1 x 0.9 in (23.62 x 15.49 x 2.29 cm)
  • Themes
    • Topical: Health & Fitness
  • Library of Congress subjects Medical care - United States, Medical care, Cost of - United States
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 2014043465
  • Dewey Decimal Code 362.109

Media reviews

Citations

  • Choice, 10/01/2015, Page 0
  • Library Journal, 05/01/2015, Page 93

About the author

Sharon R. Kaufman is Chair of the Department of Anthropology, History and Social Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. She is the author of ...And a Time to Die: How American Hospitals Shape the End of Life.

More Copies for Sale

Ordinary Medicine: Extraordinary Treatments, Longer Lives, and Where to Draw the Line

Ordinary Medicine: Extraordinary Treatments, Longer Lives, and Where to Draw the Line

by Kaufman, Sharon R.

  • Used
  • Good
  • Hardcover
Condition
Used - Good
Binding
Hardcover
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780822359029 / 0822359022
Quantity Available
2
Seller
Seattle, Washington, United States
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 4 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Item Price
NZ$23.05
FREE shipping to USA

Show Details

Description:
Duke University Press, 2015. Hardcover. Good. Former library book; Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less.Dust jacket quality is not guaranteed.
Item Price
NZ$23.05
FREE shipping to USA
Ordinary Medicine: Extraordinary Treatments, Longer Lives, and Where to Draw the Line (Critical...
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

Ordinary Medicine: Extraordinary Treatments, Longer Lives, and Where to Draw the Line (Critical Global Health: Evidence, Efficacy, Ethnography)

by Kaufman, Sharon R.

  • Used
  • Good
  • Hardcover
Condition
Used - Good
Binding
Hardcover
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780822359029 / 0822359022
Quantity Available
1
Seller
Newport Coast, California, United States
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Item Price
NZ$84.64
FREE shipping to USA

Show Details

Description:
hardcover. Good. Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items. May be an ex-library book.
Item Price
NZ$84.64
FREE shipping to USA
Ordinary Medicine : Extraordinary Treatments, Longer Lives, and Where to Draw the Line
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

Ordinary Medicine : Extraordinary Treatments, Longer Lives, and Where to Draw the Line

by Kaufman, Sharon R

  • Used
Condition
Used - Good
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780822359029 / 0822359022
Quantity Available
1
Seller
Mishawaka, Indiana, United States
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Item Price
NZ$173.78
FREE shipping to USA

Show Details

Description:
Duke University Press. Used - Good. Former library book; may include library markings. Used book that is in clean, average condition without any missing pages.
Item Price
NZ$173.78
FREE shipping to USA
Ordinary Medicine: Extraordinary Treatments, Longer Lives, and Where to Draw the Line

Ordinary Medicine: Extraordinary Treatments, Longer Lives, and Where to Draw the Line

by Sharon R. Kaufman

  • New
  • Hardcover
Condition
New
Binding
Hardcover
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780822359029 / 0822359022
Quantity Available
10
Seller
Southport, Merseyside, United Kingdom
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 5 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Item Price
NZ$236.14
NZ$20.86 shipping to USA

Show Details

Description:
Hardback. New. Sharon R. Kaufman examines the quandary of patients, families and doctors not knowing the point where enough medical treatment becomes too much treatment. A hidden chain of drivers among science, industry, new technology, and insurance spur this quandary, serving to obscure the ability to identify the difference between extraordinary and ordinary medicine.
Item Price
NZ$236.14
NZ$20.86 shipping to USA
Ordinary Medicine – Extraordinary Treatments, Longer Lives, and Where to Draw the Line
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

Ordinary Medicine – Extraordinary Treatments, Longer Lives, and Where to Draw the Line

by Kaufman, Sharon R.

  • New
  • Hardcover
Condition
New
Binding
Hardcover
ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780822359029 / 0822359022
Quantity Available
2
Seller
Exeter, Devon, United Kingdom
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 3 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Item Price
NZ$246.46
NZ$20.97 shipping to USA

Show Details

Description:
Duke Univ Pr, 2015. Hardcover. New. 1st edition. 314 pages. 9.25x6.25x1.25 inches.
Item Price
NZ$246.46
NZ$20.97 shipping to USA