How Medicine Works and When It Doesn’t: Learning Who to Trust to Get and Stay Healthy

“The most powerful force in Medicine is trust,” writes physician Wilson in his standout debut. In recent years, thanks to a “seemingly unfeeling healthcare system,” the steady erosion of people’s trust in their doctors has pushed them, Wilson posits, toward “questionable medical practices” such as “cleanses” and miracle cures. Here, he does a fantastic job of fighting misinformation by explaining basic concepts in medicine and scientific research, and offering easy to digest explanations of biologic plausibility (“Is it plausible, within our current understanding of how the human body works, that eating celery reduces the risk of falls?”), correlation vs. causation, and the mechanism of randomized controlled trials. Wilson concludes with an impassioned plea for both patients and doctors: the former should “avoid believing something because you want it to be true or because it comes from someone you want to believe,” while the latter can help earn back patients’ trust by fighting for a reformed system that allows for more time with them. The result is a trenchant, empowering look at how to fix doctor-patient relationships. Agent: Howard Yoon, Ross Yoon Agency. (Jan.)