This is the question Susan Reverby considers in a post over at Wonders & Marvels. The author of, most recently, Examining Tuskegee: The Infamous Syphilis Study and Its Legacy writes:
In my most recent book, I had to explain: why did the doctors do it? Sometimes it is easy to answer this: all the men were [...]

When it comes to medical advice, Dr. Nortin M. Hadler is an authority–his books Stabbed in the Back: Confronting Back Pain in an Overtreated Society and Worried Sick: A Prescription for Health in an Overtreated America are go-to guides for those interested in the way medical care works, as well as how it needs [...]

Whether you or someone you know is battling breast cancer, or you are just going about your daily routine, breast cancer awareness is hard to miss.  October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and it is nice to see support coming from everywhere–sidewalk signs to window displays to NFL football helmets–PINK is definitely the IT color [...]

This Labor Day, I spent some time thinking not only about the dismal state of the unemployed, the underemployed (whether by furlough, reduced hours, part-time work that has replaced full-time, or a job below the worker’s experience and capabilities) and the discouraged worker (who has given up even looking for work), to contemplate another kind [...]

As I have written here before, I’m a Yankee Vegetarian who came to the South too late to discover the taste of North Carolina Barbecue (in any of its varieties). However, as a self-proclaimed Foodie and something of a geek, if there’s one thing that brings out my inner Alton Brown it’s some good [...]

Below is an excerpt of an op-ed piece that Lisa Levenstein wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer about government involvement in health care and the Philadelphia General Hospital. She uses “Old Blockley,” as it was often called, as an example of a a successful public hospital that treated everyone with compassion. Levenstein is an assistant professor [...]

Below is commentary by Lois Shepherd, J.D., in which she discusses the idea of doctor- patient conversations about death and the current status of such counseling in the universal health care debate. Shepherd is the author of If That Ever Happens to Me: Making Life and Death Decisions After Terri Schiavo.  She holds a joint [...]

Some exciting news  regarding UNC Press…
AAUP meeting:
Several folks from UNC Press traveled to Philadelphia, PA last weekend for the annual AAUP meeting–Joanna Ruth Marsland, our Director of Development had this to say about the meeting:
“…The sessions focused on “best practices” for the various departments and activities within university presses, and the ones I attended [...]

Today’s guest post is from Judith Walzer Leavitt, author of the recently released Make Room for Daddy: The Journey from Waiting Room to Birthing Room. In her book, Leavitt follows the history of how expectant fathers, over the course of the twentieth century, gradually shifted from twiddling their thumbs in the waiting room to coaching [...]

Today I’m pleased to have a guest post from Lois Shepherd, author of If That Ever Happens to Me: Making Life and Death Decisions after Terri Shiavo. Shepherd was a lawyer living in Tallahassee during the sensational days of the Schiavo case. Her book strips away the politics and semantics that tend to oversimplify the [...]

The sun is just starting to break through the morning cloud cover on this warm spring day. Last day of sunshine before we roll into a week of rain here in the Triangle, say the weather forecasters, so let’s make the most of it!
In the next few days, there will be several opportunities to hear [...]

Yes, you! Cool stuff happening this weekend. Radio, Internet, and Real-Life events that deserve your attention:

Robert McElvaine on All Things Considered – Today, Friday, to discuss FDR’s letters from Americans and the letter-reading habit President Obama has picked up. I know, we teased you earlier in the week because we thought his conversation would air [...]

We’ve had a lot of passionate responses to Karey Harwood’s recent guest post about the ethical issues surrounding the California octuplets case. Harwood gave some helpful responses for further reading in the comments thread to that post. Here, we’re pleased to have a follow-up post from her, in which she addresses the pressures on patients [...]

When news about a woman who had given birth to octuplets last week first hit the airwaves, the story was that all had survived the premature Caesarean delivery, and the eighth kid was one doctors hadn’t even known was coming! Surprise! Within days, however, as we learned more about the birth family – that the [...]

It’s an old idea that now has a very modern twist, like a newspaper serial for the 21st century. . . .
Want to read a book but don’t have large blocks of time for settling in and curling up? We’ve found a solution for you with DailyLit — the first e-book vendor to send [...]