A portrait of Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., that, like the hospital's own emergency room, is overflowing and overextended. Salamon (Rambam's Ladder: A Meditation on Generosity and Why It Is Necessary to Give, 2003, etc.) was permitted to roam Maimonides from waiting room to executive office in 2005 and 2006. Armed with a tape recorder and notebook, she talked to the chairman of the board, doctors, nurses, social workers, patients and members of the community involved in the hospital's affairs. Woven into her wide-ranging account of the financial, ethical, scientific and sociological factors that shape a big metropolitan hospital's operations are dozens of revealing profiles (most notably of president and CEO Pam Brier); her front-of-the-book cast of characters lists nearly 70 names. Salamon calls Maimonides "a petri dish of the post 9/11 world," an apt description for a hospital founded to serve a community of Orthodox Jews in a neighborhood rapidly filling with immigrants from all over the world. Cultural conflicts are ever-present, as are those caused by human ego and ambition. The author recounts racial and religious prejudices that affect patient care, personality clashes and turf wars between doctors. Patients come and go, live or die, and fights with insurance companies are won or lost. Adding color but cluttering up her canvas are myriad irrelevant details from the administrative and professional staff's lives and social and professional relationships. Readers learn not only who said what to whom at a staff meeting, but who wore what to whose funeral. Excerpts from the author's daily log also pad this meandering account. However, some frank and chatty e-mails from anew emergency-room resident, a Midwesterner trying to adjust to the big-city life and work in a huge urban hospital, provide a welcome additional perspective. Ambitious, unwieldy and unfocused.
In 2005, Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, unveiled a new state-of-the-art, multimillion-dollar cancer center. Determined to understand the whole spectrum of factors that determine what kind of medical care people receive in this country, bestselling author Julie Salamon spent one year tracking the progess of the center and getting to know the characters who make the hospital run. Located in a community where sixty-seven different languages are spoken, Maimonides is a case study for the particular kinds of concerns that arise in institutions that serve an increasingly multicultural American demographic. Granted astonishing access by the hospital higher-ups, Salamon followed the doctors, patients, administrators, nurses, ambulance drivers, cooks, and cleaning staff. She explored not just the action on the ground but also the financial, ethical, technological, socioloical, and cultural matters that the hospital commuity encounters every day.
Drawing on her skills as interviewer, observer, and social critic, Salamon presents the story of modern medicine. She draws out the internal and external political machinations that exist between doctors and staff as well as between hospital and community. And she grounds the science and emotion of medical drama in the financial realities of operating a huge, private institution that must contend with such issues as adapting to the specific needs of immigrant groups that make up a large and growing portion of our society.
Salamon exposes struggles both profound and humdrum: bitter internal feuds, warm personal connections, comedy, egoism, greed, love, and loss; rabbinic edicts to contend with, as well as imams and herbalists and local politicians; system foul-ups, shortages of everything except forms to fill out, recalcitrant and greedy insurance reimbursement systems, and the surprising difficulty of getting doctors to wash their hands. This is the dynamic universe of small and large concerns and personalities that, taken together, determine the nature of our care.
1116921463
Drawing on her skills as interviewer, observer, and social critic, Salamon presents the story of modern medicine. She draws out the internal and external political machinations that exist between doctors and staff as well as between hospital and community. And she grounds the science and emotion of medical drama in the financial realities of operating a huge, private institution that must contend with such issues as adapting to the specific needs of immigrant groups that make up a large and growing portion of our society.
Salamon exposes struggles both profound and humdrum: bitter internal feuds, warm personal connections, comedy, egoism, greed, love, and loss; rabbinic edicts to contend with, as well as imams and herbalists and local politicians; system foul-ups, shortages of everything except forms to fill out, recalcitrant and greedy insurance reimbursement systems, and the surprising difficulty of getting doctors to wash their hands. This is the dynamic universe of small and large concerns and personalities that, taken together, determine the nature of our care.
Hospital: Man, Woman, Birth, Death, Infinity, Plus Red Tape, Bad Behavior, Money, God, and Diversity on Steroids
In 2005, Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, unveiled a new state-of-the-art, multimillion-dollar cancer center. Determined to understand the whole spectrum of factors that determine what kind of medical care people receive in this country, bestselling author Julie Salamon spent one year tracking the progess of the center and getting to know the characters who make the hospital run. Located in a community where sixty-seven different languages are spoken, Maimonides is a case study for the particular kinds of concerns that arise in institutions that serve an increasingly multicultural American demographic. Granted astonishing access by the hospital higher-ups, Salamon followed the doctors, patients, administrators, nurses, ambulance drivers, cooks, and cleaning staff. She explored not just the action on the ground but also the financial, ethical, technological, socioloical, and cultural matters that the hospital commuity encounters every day.
Drawing on her skills as interviewer, observer, and social critic, Salamon presents the story of modern medicine. She draws out the internal and external political machinations that exist between doctors and staff as well as between hospital and community. And she grounds the science and emotion of medical drama in the financial realities of operating a huge, private institution that must contend with such issues as adapting to the specific needs of immigrant groups that make up a large and growing portion of our society.
Salamon exposes struggles both profound and humdrum: bitter internal feuds, warm personal connections, comedy, egoism, greed, love, and loss; rabbinic edicts to contend with, as well as imams and herbalists and local politicians; system foul-ups, shortages of everything except forms to fill out, recalcitrant and greedy insurance reimbursement systems, and the surprising difficulty of getting doctors to wash their hands. This is the dynamic universe of small and large concerns and personalities that, taken together, determine the nature of our care.
Drawing on her skills as interviewer, observer, and social critic, Salamon presents the story of modern medicine. She draws out the internal and external political machinations that exist between doctors and staff as well as between hospital and community. And she grounds the science and emotion of medical drama in the financial realities of operating a huge, private institution that must contend with such issues as adapting to the specific needs of immigrant groups that make up a large and growing portion of our society.
Salamon exposes struggles both profound and humdrum: bitter internal feuds, warm personal connections, comedy, egoism, greed, love, and loss; rabbinic edicts to contend with, as well as imams and herbalists and local politicians; system foul-ups, shortages of everything except forms to fill out, recalcitrant and greedy insurance reimbursement systems, and the surprising difficulty of getting doctors to wash their hands. This is the dynamic universe of small and large concerns and personalities that, taken together, determine the nature of our care.
21.99
In Stock
5
1
Hospital: Man, Woman, Birth, Death, Infinity, Plus Red Tape, Bad Behavior, Money, God, and Diversity on Steroids
Hospital: Man, Woman, Birth, Death, Infinity, Plus Red Tape, Bad Behavior, Money, God, and Diversity on Steroids
FREE
with a B&N Audiobooks Subscription
Or Pay
$20.89
$21.99
21.99
In Stock
Editorial Reviews
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940171299118 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Tantor Audio |
| Publication date: | 06/02/2008 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Videos
From the B&N Reads Blog