qotd: Joshua Freeman’s “Health, Medicine and Justice”

Copernicus Healthcare

Health, Medicine and Justice
Designing a Fair and Equitable Healthcare System
By Joshua Freeman, M.D.

I hope that this book complements the others (by Donohoe, Geyman, Young,
and others), offering a perspective that combines a physician's
knowledge of medical care and how it is delivered, a scholar's
understanding of the organization of the health system, social
determinants of of health and health disparities, a caring person's
commitment to justice and equity, and an activists's desire to change
the world. I hope it is of some value.

Contents

Chapter 1: Why Do We Have a Healthcare System?

Chapter 2: The U.S. Healthcare System: Best in the World?

Chapter 3: The Social Determinants of Health and Health Inequities

Chapter 4: Impact of the U.S. Health System on the Health of the Public

Chapter 5: Primary Care: The Essential Basis for an Effective
Healthcare System

Chapter 6: The Role of Medical Education in Perpetuating the Health System

Chapter 7: Graduate Medical Education

Chapter 8: Assessing Appropriate Healthcare: Sometimes the Best Thing
to Do Is Nothing

Chapter 9: The Role of Profit in U.S. Health Care

Chapter 10: Solutions and Projected Outcomes

Health, Medicine and Justice, by Joshua Freeman:
http://www.amazon.com/Medicine-Justice-Designing-Equitable-Healthcare/dp/0988799685

Josh Freeman's Blog: Medicine and Social Justice:
http://www.medicinesocialjustice.blogspot.com

****


Comment by Don McCanne

Many books have been written about the problems and potential solutions
for our health care system. This one stands out because it represents
the informed views of a noted physician educator who is also a health
and social justice activist. He hopes the book is "of some value," and
it assuredly is.

Joshua Freeman is a leader in primary care, both as a practitioner and
as an academic, being the Chair of the Department of Family Medicine at
the University of Kansas Medical Center. He has an excellent
understanding of our disorganized health care system and of the social
determinants of health and health inequities. He has studied extensively
medicine and social justice, and shares his views through his blog. This
book brings to print the basis of his passionate activism in support of
equitable health care for all.

As the nation meanders on with implementation of the well-meaning but
intolerably deficient policies of the Affordable Care Act, this book can
give us renewal in our efforts to educate the nation on the policies
that actually would work to bring affordable and equitable health care
to all.