San Antonio College Library

"A deeply affecting work from one of the important and innovative voices in American health and medicine." -Arianna Huffington, physician Sandro Galea examines what Americans miss when they fixate on healthcare: health. Americans spend more money on health than people anywhere else in the world. And what do they get for it? Statistically, not much. Americans today live shorter, less healthy lives than citizens of other rich countries, and these trends...

Person and Family Centered Care offers a new approach that begins with the person, embraces the family, and encompasses all care delivery locations. At the forefront of this movement are authors Jane Barnsteiner, Joanne Disch, and Mary K. Walton, who present a surprisingly practical clinical reference covering a vast array of patient-care scenarios, together with effective strategies for achieving optimal outcomes. This groundbreaking text is a complete...

"A leading medical ethnobotanist tells us the story of her quest to develop new ways to fight illness and disease through the healing powers of plants in this uplifting and adventure-filled memoir. Plants are the basis for an array of lifesaving and health-improving medicines we all now take for granted. Ever taken an aspirin? Thank a willow tree for that. What about life-saving medicines for malaria? Some of those are derived from cinchona and wormwood....

Like everywhere in India, overpopulation and the caste system make access to care very difficult in the village of Jawalke. Recently, a few untouchable women who did not know how to read or write were trained in health care. Emergency doctor Bernard Fontanille follows one of these women on her daily rounds.

Sound Heals explores how sound and song can not only bring relief to our stressful lives but can truly heal those suffering from an array of chronic and debilitating diseases.

Chinese herbs--arguably the oldest remedies to ailments--have been used for thousands of years and taken by over 1 billion people throughout the Far East. In TCM, all nature-based medicines are referred to as herbs, whether they come from plants or animals. Almost every part of the plant that gives us herbs is used--the stalks, roots, fruits, leaves, and flowers. Chinese remedies are often referred to as the pharmacy of nature.

Lenny and Amy’s 5-year-old son has epilepsy. When conventional medications caused terrible side effects, they started giving him a daily drop of cannabis oil, with dramatic results. But it’s a calculated risk: While there is anecdotal evidence of cannabis’ effectiveness, scientists face research roadblocks because it’s a schedule 1 controlled substance. Science correspondent Miles O’Brien reports.

Out of the myriad aspects of traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture is, without a doubt, the most well-known. It spread to Europe as early as the 17th century. Today acupuncture is practiced in many parts of the world, but the study of acupuncture would not be possible without understanding its underlying counterpart, the Meridian System. After all, most acupoints relate to the meridians and most herbs are believed to enter the meridian pathways....

The concept of Zheng and Xie Qi forms the basis to treatment principles. Fundamentally, diseases are the outcome of the struggle between the body's resistance and internal and external pathogenic factors. Therefore, to combat illnesses, strengthening body resistance and eliminating pathogenic factors are important during clinical treatment.

TCM status is rising internationally. People are paying attention to TCM because there is a paradigm shift in medicine today. Traditional Chinese medicine is a science based mainly on natural science and integrated with the social sciences or humanities. Its way of observing diseases and the human body, its idea of treating a disease before it arises, its methods of health preservation, its focus on adjusting the state of the body is catching the...