CNU Library Blog

Title: Ethically Challenged: Private Equity Storms US Health Care.

Author: Laura Katz Olson.

Publication info: Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 2022. 

Location: Academic eBook Collection. 

Description: Revealing the dark truth about the impact of predatory private equity firms on American health care.Won Gold from the Axiom Book Award in the Category of Business Ethics, the Benjamin Franklin Awards by the Independent Book Publishers Association and the North American Book Award in the Catergory of Business Finance, Finalist of the American Book Fest Best Book Social Change and Current Events by the American Book FestPrivate equity (PE) firms pervade all aspects of our modern lives. Unlike other corporations, which generally manufacture products or provide services, they leverage considerable debt and other people's money to buy and sell businesses with the sole aim of earning supersized profits in the shortest time possible. With a voracious appetite and trillions of dollars at its disposal, the private equity industry is now buying everything from your opioid treatment center to that helicopter that helps swoop you up from a car crash site. It may even control how and when you can get your kidney dialysis. In Ethically Challenged, Laura Katz Olson describes how PE firms are gobbling up physician and dental practices; home care and hospice agencies; substance abuse, eating disorder, and autism services; urgent care facilities; and emergency medical transportation. With a sharp eye on cost and quality of care, Olson investigates the PE industry's impact on these essential services. She explains how PE firms pile up massive debt on their investment targets and how they bleed these enterprises with assorted fees and dividends for themselves. Throughout, she argues that public pension funds, which provide the preponderance of equity for PE buyouts, tend to ignore the pesky fact that their money may be undermining the very health care system their workers and retirees rely on.Weaving together insights from interviews with business owners and experts, newspaper articles, purchased data sets, and industry publications, Olson offers a unique perspective and appreciation of the significance of PE investments in health care. The first book to comprehensively address private equity and health care, Ethically Challenged raises the curtain on an industry notorious for its secrecy, exposing the nefarious side of its maneuvers.

Title: Loneliness: Science and Practice. 

Authors: Dilip V. Jeste, Tanya T. Nguyen, Nancy J. Donovan. 

Publication info: American Psychiatric Association Publishing. 2022. 

Available: Academic eBook Collection. 

Description: The internet, social media platforms, and digital technology all seem to point to a world of greater interconnectivity and social connection. Yet even against this background of global social networks, loneliness remains a major issue for millions of individuals, and one with tangible consequences: studies have demonstrated that loneliness correlates with to an increased risk of mental illnesses, as well as a 45% increased risk of death.In Loneliness: Science and Practice, experts from the United States and Europe seek to construct a translational framework for recognizing and addressing loneliness in the clinical context. Based on the latest literature on the topic, the book tackles • The theoretical foundations of loneliness and other dimensions of social connection. Readers will benefit from validated rating scales to measure loneliness that account for the varied experiences of, and factors that contribute to, loneliness.• The incidence and presentation of loneliness throughout the life cycle• Loneliness among marginalized communities, including racial and ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ individuals, immigrants, and individuals with mental illnesses• The neurobiological and systemic neuroendocrine and inflammatory mechanisms of loneliness• Interventions for loneliness, from research-based interventions for both younger and older age groups to community-based interventions Throughout this guide, clinical vignettes help ground the theoretical information in real-world applicability. Key points help readers reference each chapter's most salient points quickly, and lists of suggested readings open the door to further exploration.By examining the psychosocial and biological mechanisms of loneliness, as well as the unique social and cultural contexts in which it can occur, Loneliness: Science and Practice offers readers a holistic understanding of loneliness and a framework for addressing it in the distinct communities they serve.

Article-linking websites online can help you find relevant articles from one article's DOI. Scroll through these slides to learn more about LitMaps, Citation Gecko, and Connected Papers.

Academic research is an ongoing conversation between authors. by Sadie Davenport

Published in: 2022. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Available: As an eBook in our Academic eBook Collection. 

Description: "The focus of bioethical debates on exceptional cases neglects the underlying values—like justice and community—that would lend to a broader, more well-rounded understanding of today's world.Discussions of ethical problems in health care too often concentrate on exceptional cases. Bioethical controversies triggered by experimental drugs, gene-edited babies, or life extension are understandably fascinating: they showcase the power of medical science and technology while addressing anxieties concerning health, disease, suffering, and death. However, the focus on rare individual cases in the media spotlight turns attention away from more pressing ethical issues that impact global populations, such as access to health care, safe food and water, and the prevention of emerging infectious diseases. In Bizarre Bioethics, Henk A.M.J. ten Have argues that this focus on bizarre cases leads to bizarre bioethics with a narrow agenda for ethical debate. In other words, although these extreme cases are undeniably real, they present a limited and skewed view of everyday moral reality. This focus also assumes that individuals are rational decision-makers, so that the role of feelings and emotions can be downgraded. Larger questions related to justice, solidarity, community, meaning, and ambiguity are not appreciated. Such questions used to be posed by philosophical and theological traditions, but they have been exorcised and marginalized in the development of bioethics. Science, ten Have writes, is not a value-free endeavor that provides facts and evidence: it is driven by underlying value perspectives that are often based on metaphors and world views from philosophical and theological traditions. Drawing on a rich analysis of the literature, ten Have explains how bioethical discussion can be enriched by these metaphors and develops a broader approach that critically delves into the imaginative world views that determine understanding of the world and human existence. Examining the roles of the metaphors of ghosts, monsters, pilgrims, prophets, and relics, ten Have illustrates how science and medicine are animated by imaginations that fuel the search for hope, salvation, healing, and a predictable future. Bizarre Bioethics invites students, researchers, policymakers and teachers interested in ethics and health care to think about the value perspectives on health and disease today."

Title: What Patients Teach: The Everyday Ethics of Health Care.

By: Larry R. Churchill; Joseph B. Fanning; David Schenck. Oxford University Press. 2013.

Available in our Academic eBook Collection. 

Description: "Being a patient is a unique interpersonal experience but it is also a universal human experience. The relationships formed when we are patients can also teach some of life's most important lessons, and these relationships provide a special window into ethics, especially the ethics of healthcare professionals. This book answers two basic questions: As patients see it, what things allow relationships with healthcare providers to become therapeutic? What can this teach us about healthcare ethics? This volume presents detailed descriptions and analyses of 50 interviews with 58 patients, representing a wide spectrum of illnesses and clinician specialties. The authors argue that the structure, rhythm, and horizon of routine patient care are ultimately grounded in patient vulnerability and clinician responsiveness. From the short interview segments, the longer vignettes and the full patient stories presented here emerge the neglected dimensions of healthcare and healthcare ethics. What becomes visible is an ethics of everyday interdependence, with mutual responsibilities that follow from this moral symbiosis. Both professional expressions of healthcare ethics and the field of bioethics need to be informed and reformed by this distinctive, more patient-centered, turn in how we understand both patient care as a whole and the ethics of care more specifically. The final chapters present revised codes of ethics for health professionals, as well as the implications for medical and health professions education."