Surgery and Its Alternatives: How to Make the Right Choices for Your Health

Rating:
Summary: Every family should own this book!
Review: Dr.s McLanahan have made a unique and extraordinarily valuable contribution to health care. Truly this is a resource, not only for making wise choices when faced with the possiblity of a surgical procedure, but for also maintaining and improving your and your family's health. Integrative medicine (combining the best of conventional Western medicine with the best of alternative/complementary medicine) is rapidly becoming mainstream. Dr. Sandra McLanahan has been a pioneer in alternative/complementary medicine for over 25 years, and her brother is an outstanding surgeon with impeccable training and credentials. Both of them are very clear and down to earth writers, and their combined effort is very readable for people without medical training. Because of my own interest in integrative medicine, I've read most of this book. Because of its size and scope, however, this is probably not something most people will want to do. Used as a reference text, reading areas of personal interest because of personal or family medical issues will be of great interest to all people who care about their health. Having it available as a reference text when worrisome symptoms arise, or new medical diagnoses are made will provide all medical consumers with a much greater wealth of options than they are likely to receive from their medical practitioner. The information is well researched, documented, and credible, and can go a long way toward educating medical professional who have not yet taken the plunge into the huge and often bewildering area of alternative and complementary medicine.

Rating:
Summary: amazing information
Review: I picked this book up as an information resource for specific areas of concern and was amazed by not only the amount of ailments covered, but also the amount of varied information and guidance about each ailment. This book talks to real life choices and actions available to each of us in our pursuits to not only maintain personal health but also to support the body in healing before we get to these higher levels of sickness and disease. At the same time the book also talks to actions, choices and guidance for what we each can do for ourselves and what resources are available to each of us once a specific disease has been identified.
I really appreciated the information and also the encouragement to individuals and to doctors in regards to communication and mutual problem solving for holistic health and life options. I also appreciated the encouragement and the empowerment of the reader - not just in regards to providing information and greater understanding but also in regards to encouragement of our rights to each be treated as an individual and a person in process and not just in disease.
This book has helped me make decisions on a daily basis, and from a long-term perspective to be making better choices for myself by providing me with more confidence and understanding about different ways to be taking care of and supporting my body.
I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in exploring body and life health, as well as to anyone who is in a position where sickness or disease is present and personal choices are being made.

Rating:
Summary: A must for every patient and physician
Review: In this exhaustive guide through the oft confusing and terrifying land of illness and it's many treatment options, the Doctors Maclanahan cover the topic from head to foot, mountain top to waterfront. As a surgical educator I found the descriptions of the mechanism of disease clear and concise. The treatment options are equally instructive and should be easily understood by the majority of the readers. For the patient, this is an essential reference for sorting out their symptoms before heading off to the clinic. Arriving at the doctor's office better informed they will be better able to retain the all too often confusing explanations and complicated care plans. In the strained environment of modern health care, these critical discussions are more likely to be monologues dished out in the time pressured, intimidating environment of the office to a stunned patient unable to absorb their meaning.

For the practitioner, be they medical student to experienced surgeon, this will be one of the more "well-worn" references that will spend more time on the desk and nightstand than the bookshelf. Particularly in these times of increased popularity of alternative therapy among patients, it behooves the modern physician to better understand the myriad of treatment options and their likelihood of success. Only with a better understanding of all the options, can we physicians make informed decisions that represent the best options for our patients to restore their health and engender their trust.

Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful Achievement for People & Health Care
Review: Just holding this magnificent book is a thrill. It's 800 pages seem like a caress rather than a task as the book's preface writer, Dr. Bernie Seigel, states: " this book is for everyone". The McClanahan's have been working on this challenge for over a decade! It is woven like the finest oriental silk rug as each thread comes from life itself and the aesthetics of its design and substance instill the same emotional and intellectual reaction that a great hand made rug has on a prospective buyer. So much knowledge and wisdom are part of this great weaving that I found myself hungry to read sections apart from any given particular interest area simply by virtue of the sweep and grasp of the amazing brother and sister writing team's power. We all experience a terrible deep seated apprehension of our culture's medical care system for it is grounded in the most barbarous preoccupation with profit, innimical to genuine quality health care. Thus the angst embedded in approaching being and getting well, especially when we are assaulted by illness or disease, results in a pain often worse than the reality of our medical/health problem. The crystal clear journey that Doctors Sandra and David take us on is so friendly, so characterized by an ancient sweetness flowing from the edict to "do no harm". Theirs is truly an interest in our understanding... not being victimized by the fear of the unknown, the arrogant, the subjugating norm that is so part of our medical service system and culture in America. This book makes a major contribution to empowering all of us as we expose ourselves to the danger of dependence in that speciality of medicine where hybris is at its most menacing.

This book is a healing environs, walking us through our anatomy, chapeter by chapter, after setting the context of the path to wellness that we each experience. I think that this new and refreshing volume is a must as a sanctuary inside every family's cupboard of comforting and nourishing essentials.

Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful Achievement for People & Health Care
Review: Just holding this magnificent book is a thrill. It's 800 pages seem like a caress rather than a task as the book's preface writer, Dr. Bernie Seigel, states: " this book is for everyone". The McClanahan's have been working on this challenge for over a decade! It is woven like the finest oriental silk rug as each thread comes from life itself and the aesthetics of its design and substance instill the same emotional and intellectual reaction that a great hand made rug has on a prospective buyer. So much knowledge and wisdom are part of this great weaving that I found myself hungry to read sections apart from any given particular interest area simply by virtue of the sweep and grasp of the amazing brother and sister writing team's power. We all experience a terrible deep seated apprehension of our culture's medical care system for it is grounded in the most barbarous preoccupation with profit, innimical to genuine quality health care. Thus the angst embedded in approaching being and getting well, especially when we are assaulted by illness or disease, results in a pain often worse than the reality of our medical/health problem. The crystal clear journey that Doctors Sandra and David take us on is so friendly, so characterized by an ancient sweetness flowing from the edict to "do no harm". Theirs is truly an interest in our understanding... not being victimized by the fear of the unknown, the arrogant, the subjugating norm that is so part of our medical service system and culture in America. This book makes a major contribution to empowering all of us as we expose ourselves to the danger of dependence in that speciality of medicine where hybris is at its most menacing.

This book is a healing environs, walking us through our anatomy, chapeter by chapter, after setting the context of the path to wellness that we each experience. I think that this new and refreshing volume is a must as a sanctuary inside every family's cupboard of comforting and nourishing essentials.