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The following books have been reviewed by Every Patient's Advocate and may be recommended for those patients and advocates who are interested in learning more about a diagnosis, disease, condition, treatment option, or general diagnosis or misdiagnosis information.

Internet resources are available through our sister site:  www.DiagKNOWsis.org

Do you have a book you would like us to review?  Please contact us.

After a close call with a medical disaster, Dr. Gallin learned to use the healthcare system to get the answers and care she needed.  Based on her experiences, she wrote her book as a guideline for other patients.  Throughout the book, she emphasizes ways to avoid mistakes in order to “emerge unscathed from the medical care maze.”

Patients will find this book helpful, if they remember that Dr. Gallin's medical training, and experience in the hospital she was treated in, provided her with the background understanding – and connections -- she needed. 

Also, much of this book discusses hospital stays and treatment. 

Another physician-author, Dr. Giller works with patients with neurological illnesses, meaning, he has spent a lot of time with patients who have had to make very frightening decisions about their treatment options.

This book is very good for empowering patients, but is difficult to navigate.  It tackles everything from calculating statistical variances to how to handle disagreements between parents with a sick child, to chapters so nebulous as “Contemplation of Meaning”.

In truth, I believe Dr. Giller is a deep thinker and thoughtful doctor who wants to impart his wisdom.  Unfortunately, he makes it difficult to wade through, and even more difficult to translate into a plan of action. 

This book is a real lightening rod, more than it is a manual for patients.  It contains as much fear-driven caution as it does useful ideas.  It does contain some good advice, but it also makes suggestions which at times seem to contradict themselves. 

Even Publisher’s Weekly called Dr. Levine’s advice a “mixed bag.”  It is one more physician-written advice book.

There are some good references in this book, especially in regards to the kinds of things patients need to be wary of. And like Dr. Gallin’s book described above, there is a great deal of emphasis on how to work within a hospital environment.

The three authors of this book are medical professionals;  a doctor, a medical librarian, and a medical writer, but they have done the closest interpretation of walking in a patient’s shoes.  This book is part of a collection of dozens of “Patient Centered Guides”.

Unfortunately, it was published almost six years ago, and the information that relates to use of the internet is outdated. 

Further, while this book does a good job of uncovering resources, it does not address several of the aspects of the DiagKNOWsis approach including finding the right doctor, dealing with difficult doctors, creating one’s own medical records or seeking a second opinion.

Dr. Pettus is the Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and a former Chief of Staff at the Berkshire Medical Center.  And that’s just the start of his list of credentials.

The Savvy Patient is a helpful book for learning to navigate the system, but is written from a physician’s point of view.  In this case, he does not have the experience of having been a patient.

While it is useful for some of its “insider tips”, the book concentrates a great deal on navigating hospital-related situations, and includes chapters that seem extraneous for a discussion of health-care system navigation, such as how a patient’s pets will react to an owner who has been away for a hospital stay.

Dr. Schneider, a climatologist and winner of one of the 2005 “Genius” Awards has combined a journal of his own experiences as a patient who was diagnosed with a very rare lymphoma, with helpful ideas about working with doctors to make treatment decisions. 

As a scientist, he understands the way to approach theory and scientific decision-making which helped him work with his doctors to determine treatments that would work for him.

A good portion of this book is technical beyond the interest of most patients who do not have the same disease. However, Dr. Schneider is most certainly the embodiment of the “empowered patient,” and his book provides a description of his journey. 

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