Can Evidence Based Medicine (EBM) and Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) find common ground? A distinguished historian of medicine, John S. Haller Jr., explores the epistemological foundations of EBM and the challenges these conceptual tools present for both conventional and alternative therapies. As he explores a possible reconciliation between their conflicting approaches, Haller maintains a healthy, scientific skepticism yet finds promise in select complementary and alternative (CAM) therapies. Haller elucidates recent research on the placebo effect and shows how a new engagement between EBM and CAM might lead to a more productive medical practice that includes both the objectivity of evidence-based medicine and the subjective truth of the physician-patient relationship. Haller's book tours key topics in the standoff between EBM and CAM: how and why the double blinded, randomized clinical trial (RCT) came to be considered the gold standard in modern medicine; the challenge of postmodern medicine as it counters the positivism of evidence-based medicine; and the politics of modern CAM and the rise of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. He conducts an in-depth case study of homeopathy, explaining why it has emerged as a poster-child for CAM, and assesses CAM's popularity despite its poor performance in clinical trials. Haller concludes with hope, showing how new experimental protocols might tease out the evidentiary basis for the placebo effect and establish a foundation for some reconciliation between EBM and CAM.

"Aclear-sighted, heartfelt, and humane story of the needless tests and treatments that cripple healthcare....as a guide to good medicine, it may help us get back to the essence of what good doctors do: be with patients in healing." —Samuel Shem, M.D., author of The House of God and The Spirit of the Place In Hippocrates’ Shadow, Dr. David H. Newman upends our understanding of the doctor-patient relationship and offers a new paradigm of honesty and communication. He sees a disregard for the healing power of the bond that originated with Hippocrates, and, ultimately, a disconnect between doctors and their oath to"do no harm." Exposing the patterns of secrecy and habit in modern medicine’s carefully protected subculture, Dr. Newman argues that doctors and patients cling to tradition and yield to demands for pills or tests. Citing fascinating studies that show why antibiotics for sore throats are almost always unnecessary; how cough syrup is rarely more effective than a sugar pill; and why CPR is violent, invasive—and almost always futile, this thought-provoking book cuts to the heart of what really works, and what doesn’t, in medicine.

This work uncovers the history of women and addiction in America and how dependent women have been treated. The author is critical of doctors who have often been quick to prescribe narcotics to female patients.

Dr. O'Connell's collection of stories and essays, written during thirty years of caring for homeless persons in Boston, gently illuminates the humanity and raw courage of those who struggle to survive and find meaning and hope while living on the streets.

A quarterly digest of advances, discoveries, and improvements in the medical and surgical sciences.

Dr. Michael J. Manley, a therapist for the homeless in Los Angeles, wanted to know what it’s really like living on the streets. So following his retirement, he purposely became like the people he had counseled, discovering that their life is far more difficult than he could have possibly imagined. African Americans living in the United States are treated unequal to the white Americans. At Starbucks, colleges, and other institutions, due to their color, as the novel Shadow contends. Manley is the author of seven novels: Parlay; The Emeritus: Who Will Rule; The Tides of Time; The Gene Factor; Games of The Gods; Take the Ride of Your Life, with The Uber-Groover!; and Still Waters Run Deep. His eighth book is Shadow: Based on a True Event, which focuses on his life adjusting to retirement after thirty years working as a therapist at a veterans’ hospital in Los Angeles County. Manley loves the challenge of switching genres. He has written fiction, nonfiction, romances, thrillers, and mysteries. “Observing people and talking to people made me get into writing,” he remembers. “I like conversing with people and telling my stories to a wide and vast audience of readers.”

Includes the Association's membership rosters.