The Patient Paradox by Margaret McCartney
The Patient Paradox: Why sexed up medicine is bad for your health. Published by Pinter & Martin Ltd
published 28th February 2012
ISBN: 978-1-78066-000-4
paperback | 336 pp |135 x 216mm
also available as ebook
£9.99
Welcome to the world of sexed-up medicine, where patients have been turned into customers, and clinics and waiting rooms are jammed with healthy people, lured in to have their blood pressure taken and cholesterol, smear test, bowel or breast screening done.
In the world of sexed-up medicine pharmaceutical companies gloss over research they don’t like and charities often use dubious science and dodgy PR to ‘raise awareness’ of their disease, leaving a legacy of misinformation in their wake. Our obsession with screening swallows up the time of NHS staff and the money of healthy people who pay thousands to private companies for tests they don’t need. Meanwhile, the truly sick are left to wrestle with disjointed services and confusing options.
Explaining the truth behind the screening statistics and investigating the evidence behind the hype, Margaret McCartney, an award-winning writer and doctor, argues that this patient paradox – too much testing of well people and not enough care for the sick – worsens health inequalities and drains professionalism, harming both those who need treatment and those who don’t.
The Patient Paradox is available from all good bookshops, internet retailers and direct from the publishers atwww.pinterandmartin.com. Also available as ebook
Editor’s notes:
- Screening can do more harm than good – but how many people know that when they sign up for breast screening or a cholesterol check? The Patient Paradox argues that screening tests – both in the NHS and private sector – are overhyped and oversold.
- This book calls for patients, doctors and policy makers to look at the damage being caused as doctors have become deprofessionalised and patients have been turned into customers.
- Margaret McCartney is a GP in Glasgow and mother of three. She started writing for the press after being infuriated by an article in a newspaper which claimed the CT body screening was the way to stay well.
Margaret McCartney has written for many UK newspapers, as well the British Medical Journal, has had columns in the Guardian and the FT Weekend and is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4’s Inside Health. Margaret has won prizes from the Medical Journalists Association, the Healthwatch award, and from the European School of Oncology.
Even stars explode 