cover image WHAT YOUR DOCTOR WON'T (OR CAN'T) TELL YOU: Doctors, Hospitals, Drugs, Insurance—What You Need to Know to Take Charge of Your Own Health

WHAT YOUR DOCTOR WON'T (OR CAN'T) TELL YOU: Doctors, Hospitals, Drugs, Insurance—What You Need to Know to Take Charge of Your Own Health

Evan Scott Levine, , M.D. . Putnam, $24.95 (277pp) ISBN 978-0-399-15150-7

Levine, a practicing internist and cardiologist, is "disturbed about the direction and the deterioration of modern medicine in this country" and has written this book "to tell you what you can do, as a medical consumer, to get the very best treatment." To that end, he offers a mixed bag of useless and useful information, tempered with personal anecdotes. His topical chapters end with summary lists of advice, which, though enlightening, aren't consistently practical. Intelligent remarks on how to choose a doctor mix with obvious statements, such as "Make sure the physician accepts your insurance"; and Levine's advice to "get out" if you find yourself in a substandard hospital may be unrealistic. However, the book also contains some pertinent and sensible advice, including Levine's counsel for patients to bring their medical records with them and keep a family member by their bedside. One of his best recommendations is that "it never hurts at least to ask the nurse if there is a doctor that she or he would recommend," since "nurses almost always know which doctor is good and which is not." And Levine's counsel on getting a second opinion can be lifesaving. In regards to the pharmaceutical industry's rampant reign, Levine says, "We've all heard of Americans purchasing medications abroad, and for some I guess it is an alternative." Otherwise, he advises, "buy generic." Perhaps this uneven book's greatest contribution will be to generate a grassroots uprising that "will be the beginning of the end of the greatest rip-off ever imposed on the American consumer," i.e., our current health care system. Agent, Ron Bard. (Mar.)

Forecast: If this work is positioned as an expose (and the galley copy suggests it will be, with phrases like "it is high time someone blew the whistle"), it could get media coverage. Levine will tour to promote the book.