Customer Reviews

The Bottom Line: A Layman's Guide to Medicine

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Mr. Stanzak stands in the middle of the wide gulf between physicians and their patients as an experienced traveling critical care (ICU) nurse. He has also worked on pharmaceutical research and development for Eli Lilly. In addition, he has earned patents.

Taking that unusual vantage point, Mr. Stanzak has investigated how well modern American medicine heals its patients in terms of results and costs. While doing independent research would be beyond the resources of any individual, he has invested much time to read the clinical studies that tell you what your primary care physician, HMO, and legislators don't want you to know: You're being taken for a ride in which your health is being sacrificed so someone else can make more money at your expense.

Every American who can read at a high school level in English should pour over this book: It will save you and your loved ones much grief in the future.

In a brief, on-line review, I cannot begin to summarize all the studies that Mr. Stanzak summarizes. But you'll find the key points of all the studies you can imagine when you read the book (and if that's not enough, his footnotes are complete enough to help you access the original sources).

But let me summarize a few points that you may not know . . . that could hurt you if you don't learn these facts:

1. Physicians rarely read research on what best practices are. Instead, physicians rely on what medical salespeople tell them . . . and those salespeople don't tell it straight.

2. To make matters worse, physicians gain a lot of economic benefits from playing along with the pharmaceutical companies and writing lots of prescriptions (trips, lecture fees, lavish entertaining and gifts).

3. Most of the money earned from prescription drugs goes for profits, marketing to physicians and advertising to consumers . . . not developing new prescription drugs.

4. All of the medical interventions that physicians can make have less impact on mortality than what you can do with lifestyle and diet.

5. We are so over-prescribed for drugs that the net effect is probably to reduce our health through the many harmful drug interactions.

6. Physicians, nurses and hospital personnel kill hundreds of thousands of people annually with mistakes. With proper staffing, more rest, better hygiene and other simple measures, the bulk of these deaths could be avoided.

7. Despite what politicians tell you, malpractice suits and payments are rare (less than 2% of all mistakes lead to suits) and are in infinitesimal part of total health care costs.

8. Overhead costs absorb about half of our health care spending and add essentially no value.

9. Hospitals are more dangerous than most diseases and conditions that put you in the hospital between antibiotic resistant bacteria, personnel who don't bother to wash their hands or stethoscopes between patients, mistaken orders and medicines, and the constant disruption to your sleep, blood supply and privacy.

10. If in doubt, don't treat most diseases and you'll last longer. That's right. The medical care will probably reduce your life expectancy if you have something that can heal on its own.

Mr. Stanzak makes his points in less alarmist sentences than I have just used.

How surprised was I by these conclusions? Not very. After all, I am the father of a young pediatrician and a nursing training manager who is an RN. They've told me the same things.

But I suspect that you don't know these facts . . . or you wouldn't be taking most of the medicines you take today, going to the doctor's office as often as you do, or agreeing to the treatments that you are receiving.

The lesson: Patient, heal thyself. Your physician probably can't!

I would highly recommend this book for nurses [who may be trying to figure out 'what it's all about LIFE and LIE in medicine'], for nursing students and no doubt, the public. Sadly, those who could benefit most from this book, vulnerable consumers, CEO's and physicians will probably never read it. "The Bottom Line : A Layman's Guide to Medicine" is a compelling reading. Whether you work in the health care industry, or are a self educated consumer, Stanzak's writing wryly covers all aspects of the medical controversies with a thoroughness rarely found in books of current affairs. The writer is witty, informative and scientifically oriented. The fact that Medicine is unable to protect anybody, and that this leaves anyone who is subjected to a hospital stay in grave danger, should be enough to give us all some motivation to put The Bottom line medicine at the top of everyone's reading list.

"Meaningful change can only occur after the public has been educated to the needless risks of modern healthcare." (Stanzak p.123)

The purpose behind Stanzak's presentation of the short-comings of our medical system can be summed up in this sentence. By highlighting areas for improvement (all backed up by an incredible amount of solid, well-interpreted research), this book presents the reader with an opportunity--to make more informed decisions, to ask more informed questions, to keep himself and his loved ones safe. As a healthcare professional, I found the book enlightening, not offensive, and think it would be informative to help all healthcare professionals think outside the pre-defined box. As an HMO member, the book encouraged me to stay healthy (prevention!) and be my own healthcare advocate. The objective evidence presented in the book speaks for itself, and it is asking for a change. If enough people catch on, we could find ourselves in a much healthier society.