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July 28, 2010

Obama’s HIV/AIDS Strategy: Real Change or Pocket Change?

We welcome a guest post today from Jennifer Brier, author of Infectious Ideas: U.S. Political Responses to the AIDS Crisis. When the Obama administration announced a new HIV/AIDS strategy, we asked Brier to unpack the news and help give historical perspective to the new plan.–ellen Reading President Obama’s new HIV/AIDS strategy, released on July 13, 2010, was alternately exciting and… Continue Reading Obama’s HIV/AIDS Strategy: Real Change or Pocket Change?

Categories Current Events/Gay / Lesbian Studies/Guest Bloggers/Health / Medicine/Politics/Public Policy
July 12, 2010

Changing the Nursing Care Model

Doctors Nortin M. Hadler and Mark E. Williams recently authored a piece about the changing dynamics of healthcare after retirement, a system dating to the 1960s. They say the modern notion of Americans spend the last years of life has become incredibly sterilized since the influx of for-profit nursing homes. With increasing lifespans and complexity of treatment, what was good… Continue Reading Changing the Nursing Care Model

Categories Health / Medicine/Science/UNC Press Authors/UNC Press News
June 17, 2010

Interview: Judith Walzer Leavitt

This weekend is Father’s Day (hope you didn’t forget!) and in honor of pops and grandpas everywhere, we have an interview with Judith Walzer Leavitt, author of Make Room for Daddy. Drawing from letters, journals and interviews with fathers, Leavitt investigates how the role of the father changed from the 1940s to the 1980s. Once banished to the waiting room,… Continue Reading Interview: Judith Walzer Leavitt

Categories Gender Studies/Health / Medicine/Interviews/TSoT/UNC Press Authors/Women's Studies
June 11, 2010

Gooooooooal!

The 2010 FIFA World Cup is upon us! The frenzied fans are coming out from every nook and cranny to cheer on their teams, painted head to toe in team colors and fervently waving flags. An event that only occurs once every four years, this year’s tournament is hosting 32 teams in South Africa and, like past gatherings, will keep… Continue Reading Gooooooooal!

Categories Health / Medicine/Interviews/Reference/Sports/UNC Press Authors
March 30, 2010

Improving the Health of North Carolinians, Then and Now

Today we welcome a guest post from William W. McLendon, M.D., coauthor, with Floyd W. Denny Jr. and William B. Blythe, of Bettering the Health of the People: W. Reece Berryhill, the UNC School of Medicine, and the North Carolina Good Health Movement. The book explores the history of North Carolina’s postwar effort to provide health care for all N.C.… Continue Reading Improving the Health of North Carolinians, Then and Now

Categories American History/Current Events/Guest Bloggers/Health / Medicine/North Carolina/Public Policy
March 26, 2010

The legacy of North Carolina’s eugenics program

The cover story for this week’s Independent Weekly (on newsstands in the Triangle from 3/24/10 to 3/30/10), discusses the victims of North Carolina’s 20th-century eugenics program and the current campaign for reparations to people (mostly poor black women) who were forcibly sterilized. As of March 1, 2010, the state has established an organization to finally bring justice for surviving victims.… Continue Reading The legacy of North Carolina’s eugenics program

Categories African American History/American History/Civil Rights/Guest Bloggers/Health / Medicine/History/North Carolina/Public Policy/Women's Studies
February 22, 2010

How do you Explain the Seemingly Unexplainable?

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 black and poor, and… Continue Reading How do you Explain the Seemingly Unexplainable?

Categories African American Studies/American History/Health / Medicine/History/UNC Press Authors
January 15, 2010

The Doctor Is In: Catching Up with Nortin M. Hadler, M.D.

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 to change. Recently, Hadler’s name and… Continue Reading The Doctor Is In: Catching Up with Nortin M. Hadler, M.D.

Categories Health / Medicine/Public Policy/UNC Press Authors/UNC Press News
October 26, 2009

Don’t Ignore the Signs about Breast Cancer Awareness

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 month, this year, anytime… Continue Reading Don’t Ignore the Signs about Breast Cancer Awareness

Categories Health / Medicine/UNC Press News/Women's Studies
September 8, 2009

Celebrating the “other” Labor Day…

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 of Labor Day–the day that… Continue Reading Celebrating the “other” Labor Day…

Categories Current Events/Gender Studies/Health / Medicine
August 26, 2009

Better Barbecue Through Chemistry!

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 old Food Science. And I don’t… Continue Reading Better Barbecue Through Chemistry!

Categories Cooking / Food/Health / Medicine/North Carolina/Southern Studies/UNC Press News
August 24, 2009

Lisa Levenstein weighs in on health care, government involvement & “Old Blockley”

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 of history at the University… Continue Reading Lisa Levenstein weighs in on health care, government involvement & “Old Blockley”

Categories Current Events/Health / Medicine/UNC Press Authors/UNC Press News
August 20, 2009

Lois Shepherd Discusses Idea of Doctor/Patient End-of-Life Counseling and the Ongoing Health Care Debate

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 appointment as associate professor of… Continue Reading Lois Shepherd Discusses Idea of Doctor/Patient End-of-Life Counseling and the Ongoing Health Care Debate

Categories Current Events/Health / Medicine/Politics/UNC Press Authors
June 24, 2009

AAUP, abc.com…

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 were very good.… Continue Reading AAUP, abc.com…

Categories Health / Medicine/UNC Press Authors/UNC Press News
June 16, 2009

Dads in scrubs: now assisting in a delivery room near you!

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 breathing exercises in the birthing… Continue Reading Dads in scrubs: now assisting in a delivery room near you!

Categories American History/American Studies/Gender Studies/Guest Bloggers/Health / Medicine
May 21, 2009

More talk, less action: toward sensible health care reform

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 complex ethical issues at stake… Continue Reading More talk, less action: toward sensible health care reform

Categories Ethics/Guest Bloggers/Health / Medicine/Law / Legal History/Public Policy
March 11, 2009

Places to go, people to see

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 various UNC Press authors… Continue Reading Places to go, people to see

Categories African American Studies/American History/Biography / Autobiography/Civil War/Cooking / Food/Current Events/Events/Gay / Lesbian Studies/Gender Studies/Health / Medicine/History/Interviews/Local Indy Booksellers/Military History/Military Studies/North Carolina/Podcasts/Southern Studies/The Book Biz/UNC Press Authors/UNC Press News
February 27, 2009

Your Weekend To-Do List

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 Wednesday or Thursday. Well,… Continue Reading Your Weekend To-Do List

Categories African American History/African American Studies/American History/Biography / Autobiography/Cooking / Food/Ethics/Events/Health / Medicine/North Carolina/Podcasts
February 25, 2009

Harwood follows up on ethical issues at stake in the octuplets case

  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 and providers in the… Continue Reading Harwood follows up on ethical issues at stake in the octuplets case

Categories Current Events/Ethics/Guest Bloggers/Health / Medicine/UNC Press News
February 6, 2009

Ethics and the California octuplets case

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 mother was single and already… Continue Reading Ethics and the California octuplets case

Categories Current Events/Ethics/Guest Bloggers/Health / Medicine