Why We Revolt: A Patient Revolution for Careful and Kind Care

by Victor Montori

Overview

The Mayo Clinic physician and founder of The Patient Revolution offers a “thoroughly convincing. . . call to action for medical industry reform” (Kirkus).
 
Winner of the 2018 PenCraft Award for Literary Excellence, Why We Revolt exposes the corruption and negligence that are endemic in America’s healthcare system—and offers a blueprint for revolutionizing patient care across the country. Through a series of essays and first-hand accounts, Dr. Victor M. Montori demonstrates how the system has been increasingly exploited and industrialized, putting profit before patients. As costs soar, the United States continues to fall behind other countries on patient outcomes.
 
Offering concrete, direct actions we can take to bring positive change to the healthcare system, Why We Revolt is an inspiring call-to-action for physicians, policymakers, and patients alike. Dr. Montori shows how we can work together to create a system that offers tailored healthcare in a kind and careful way.
 
All proceeds from Why We Revolt go directly to Patient Revolution, a non-profit organization founded by Dr. Montori that empowers patients, caregivers, community advocates, and clinicians to rebuild our healthcare system.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780795352959
Publisher:	RosettaBooks
Publication date:	10/01/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	116
File size:	766 KB

About the Author

In a series of brief and personal essays, Why We Revolt describes what is wrong with industrial healthcare, how it has corrupted its mission, and how it has stopped caring. Montori rescues the language of patient care to propose a revolution of compassion and solidarity, of unhurried conversations, and of careful and kind care. In this brave book, Dr. Montori channels George Orwell to expose the corruption — and absurdity — of health care. Filled with compassionate and clear-eyed observations, Why we Revolt will leave you fired up, no matter what side of the gurney you are on – Julia Belluz, senior health correspondent at Vox.com. We revolt because our health – our very lives – matter. Why We Revolt does not serve as a blueprint but as an inspiration for patients and clinicians who are ready to pry open the idea of “healthcare” and make it about actual health and care. This book is a necessary catalyst for conversations that will revolutionize patient care – Kerri Sparling, diabetes patient advocate and creator of SixUntilMe.com. This marvelously optimistic book is an urgent and cogent call to action that is firmly rooted in direct experience of the harms inflicted, not only on patients but also on those who try to care for them, by the industrialization of contemporary healthcare – Iona Heath, medical doctor and writer, former president of the Royal College of General Practitioners. This profoundly humanistic examination of what has gone wrong in medicine has the diagnosis just right. This book is for everyone who will ever be a patient, for every health professional, and for every administrator and policy-maker – Gordon Guyatt, physician and researcher, father of evidence-based medicine. I went into medicine to interact with real, unique, emotive humans. Why We Revolt brings healthcare back to this primary love of and care for patients. – Sara Segner, medical student. Why We Revolt is a triumph. It speaks honestly and knowledgeably about the faults of “industrial medicine,” but with a deep understanding of caring and of the clinic. Montori, a doctor, citizen, and poet, has produced a wonderful and meaningful book that deserves widespread attention – Don Berwick, physician, former Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and President Emeritus of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. Kirkus review says, "A thoroughly convincing, mobilizing, and supremely optimistic call to action for medical industry reform. A starred-review at Blue Ink says, Montori’s call for a humanistic revolution is based on belief that reform is possible. Samuel Finnikin in the British Journal of General Practice wrote, Beautifully written, with an elegantly simple and though-provoking message, I recommend it wholeheartedly, and, once you have read it, pass it on to someone else. We need a change in health care, and this may be the answer.

Table of Contents

Prologue ix

Introduction: Revolt 15

Part 1 23

Chapter 1 Cruelty 25

Chapter 2 Blur 35

Chapter 3 Greed 43

Chapter 4 Burden 65

Chapter 5 John 81

Part 2 87

Chapter 6 Elegance 89

Chapter 7 Solidarity 99

Chapter 8 Love 107

Chapter 9 Amanda 115

Chapter 10 Integrity 119

Part 3 127

Chapter 11 Timelessness 129

Chapter 12 Careful 137

Chapter 13 92 151

Chapter 14 Conversations 157

Chapter 15 Cathedrals 167

Part 4 175

Chapter 16 Fear 177

Epilogue 183

About the author 187

Acknowledgments 189

Editorial Reviews

We revolt because our health — our very lives — matter. Why We Revolt does not serve as a blueprint but as an inspiration for patients and clinicians who are ready to pry open the idea of “healthcare” and make it about actual health and care. This book is a necessary catalyst for conversations that will revolutionize patient care.

– Kerri Sparling, diabetes patient advocate and creator of sixuntilme.com

This profoundly humanistic examination of what has gone wrong in medicine has the diagnosis just right. This book is for everyone who will ever be a patient, for every health professional, and for every administrator and policy-maker.

– Gordon Guyatt, physician and researcher, father of evidence-based medicine

I went into medicine to interact with real, unique, emotive humans. Why We Revolt brings healthcare back to this primary love of and care for patients.

– Sara Segner, medical student

Montori begins with a gut punch that stays with you throughout this powerful, sobering, eye-opening book. After expertly diagnosing the roots of “industrial healthcare” problems, he passionately plots a patient revolution. Policy makers, clinicians, patients, and journalists should set aside the very little time needed to absorb this gem and learn from its lessons.

– Gary Schwitzer, journalist and publisher of healthnewsreview.org

From the Publisher

2017-11-09
A discourse on the need for improved patient-centered health care. Montori, a Mayo Clinic physician and clinical researcher, sternly criticizes the shortcomings of the contemporary medical establishment and discusses the barriers in place that prevent patients from accessing the compassionate, effective treatment that they deserve. His nonprofit organization, The Patient Revolution, was founded in 2016 to advance and promote more thoughtful and careful clinical care, and all the proceeds from sales of this book will support its work. Its tenets are fully represented in the text, which aims to draw attention to the benefits of a doctor-patient relationship that is built on personalized communication and unhurried professionalism. "Industrial healthcare is killing the healer's soul," Montori writes, and his proactive, multipart work moves through varying aspects of modern health care while taking direct aim at the problems plaguing it. In a series of illuminating and provocative essays and patient profiles, the author draws on positive and negative field observations from his own medical training in Peru and from his clinical practice in the United States. He spotlights an illogical patient prescription system that he says "fails the stress test of kindness"; how hospital accounting departments partner with agencies to pressure patients for payment; and how executive corruption scandals have fractured industry reputations. All of these aspects dehumanize patients, Montori notes, and systematically cause the overall deterioration of medical-care consortiums. Perhaps the most indicting and distressing chapter is one on corporate avarice. The author cites greed as the motivating principle in modern health care, writing that the industry "has shifted its focus from patient care and instead has honed in on achieving goals that are industrial and financial." Money is the primary focus now, he insists, with industry establishments enticing consumers with advertisements and promises of results that play on their hopes, fears, and primal insecurities. Not one to shy away from provocative declarations, Montori openly accuses pharmaceutical and medical device companies of extortion, and, in laymen's terms, he tells how their profit-over-patient concept operates. He also incorporates patient stories from his own practice as a diabetes physician which effectively shows how consumers manage chronic ailments in addition to the struggles and demands of modern life. Many things get lost as patients rush into and out of doctors' offices, Montori asserts, including patients' personal lives, support for self-care, and even baseline humanity—all in an effort to increase efficiency and profit margins. As one possible solution among many others, the author advocates for what he calls "minimally disruptive care," promoting easily accessible programs with continuous, coordinated services. On the whole, Montori's treatise is both manageably sized and authoritatively written, and it delivers a powerful, revolutionary manifesto. It includes curative action items to abolish what the author sees as the incidental cruelty of medical care. Readers who are similarly frustrated with the state of the American health care industry will find an ally and a sympathetic voice in Montori's work. A thoroughly convincing, mobilizing, and supremely optimistic call to action for medical industry reform.

Kirkus Reviews