The Fall Bookshelf

Recent Books by Faculty of Harvard Medical, Dental, and Public Health Schools

William Camann, Kathryn J. Alexander
Easy Labor: Every Woman’s Guide to Choosing Less Pain and More Joy During Childbirth
Ballantine Books
Every woman expects that childbirth will be painful. The women who experience less pain, writes William Camann, HMS associate professor of anesthesia and director of obstetric anesthesia at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, are the ones who take time ahead of the birth to consider their pain management options and who are open to using a combination of pain relief methods that are both medical and nonmedical. Camann and his co-author, Kathryn Alexander, offer a comprehensive guide to the medical and natural techniques that are commonly used for pain relief during birth. The authors respond to frequent questions and concerns they have encountered through their clinical work, using the experiences of real mothers. The book also addresses choosing the birth environment, common fears about childbirth, and a short history of childbirth pain relief, all in a manner that is accessible for both first-time and veteran mothers.

Amy P. Campbell, Joslin Diabetes Center Staff
Staying Healthy with Diabetes: Nutrition and Meal Planning
Joslin Diabetes Center
Diabetics have many things to consider when it comes to sitting down for a meal. In addition to knowing how each type of food affects glucose levels, they also must be aware of how much and what kind of fat, calories, fiber, carbohydrates, and sweeteners are on their plates. Amy Campbell and the staff at Joslin Diabetes Center have put together an easy-to-understand guide to choosing the best foods to stay healthy. Campbell does not simply list foods that must be avoided; instead, she offers suggestions for foods that positively affect blood sugar and cholesterol, using charts and meal plans intended to make the guidelines easy to implement. The book includes sections on handling tricky situations, such as holiday and special occasion dining, eating out, eating when sick, and drinking alcohol. The author maintains that with knowledge and planning, diabetics never have to miss out on their favorite meals.

Stuart T. Hauser, Joseph P. Allen, Eve Golden
Out of the Woods: Tales of Resilient Teens
Harvard University Press
The Children’s Center at High Valley Hospital had a reputation as the kind of place where the spoiled offspring of well-off intellectuals lived out their teenage angst from the comfort of the therapist’s couch. In reality, the experience for most children there was far from comfortable, and the center accommodated patients from a variety of backgrounds who suffered from a range of emotional and psychiatric problems. Stuart Hauser, HMS professor of psychiatry at Judge Baker Children’s Center, and colleagues conducted annual interviews with 150 teenagers, about half of whom were hospitalized at High Valley, between 1978 and 1983. Hauser and his colleagues revisited the former patients as young adults and found that while many of them were still struggling, some were leading happy, productive lives. Through the children’s own stories, Hauser and his co-authors Joseph Allen and Eve Golden explore the quality of resilience and what makes some kids get stuck in their troubled pasts while others are able to move on.

Arthur J. Barsky, Emily C. Deans
Stop Being Your Symptoms and Start Being Yourself
Collins
Pain, fatigue, insomnia, migraines, and acid indigestion can be nuisances when they occur occasionally, but for chronic sufferers, symptoms such as these can severely interfere with family life, work, and leisure activities. Arthur Barsky, HMS professor of psychiatry at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Emily Deans, HMS clinical instructor of psychiatry at BWH, maintain that sufferers are in control of how profound an impact their symptoms have on their lives. Barsky and Deans provide a six-week program that teaches ways to think about and react to symptoms more constructively through exercises, worksheets, and examples from patients the authors have treated. The goal of the program is not to eradicate all symptoms, but to teach new coping skills so the symptoms are not overwhelming.

Nicholas L. Tilney
A Perfectly Striking Departure: Surgeons and Surgery at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital 1912–1980
Science History Publications
During its nearly 70 years of existence, the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, the teaching arm of HMS, was home to many surgical advances and many accomplished surgeons. Nicholas Tilney, the Francis D. Moore professor of surgery at HMS, chronicles these luminaries and their achievements in a history of the surgery department at the hospital from its beginning until a merger formed Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 1980. From Harvey Cushing, who introduced the new field of neurosurgery to the hospital, to Joseph Murray, a Nobel Prize winner honored for his work in organ transplantation, Tilney, himself a surgeon at BWH, offers insight into some of the greatest surgical advances of the last century through the stories he tells about the individuals who helped make surgical history at the Brigham.

Marylene Cloitre, Lisa R. Cohen, Karestan C. Koenen
Treating Survivors of Childhood Abuse: Psychotherapy for the Interrupted Life
The Guilford Press
Children who survive abuse frequently do not develop emotional, social, and life skills at the same rate as their peers. Most often, the therapists treating these children are well-equipped with strategies to set their patients back on the path of normal development. Adult survivors of childhood abuse who are seeking help for the first time, however, present a unique set of difficulties to the people who treat them. Karestan Koenen, HSPH assistant professor of society, human development, and health, and her co-authors Marylene Cloitre and Lisa Cohen, have developed a treatment program for the mental health providers who work with such adults. Based on the concept of the “interrupted life,” the book offers a plan to help adult abuse survivors restart the emotional and social development that was halted as children. Using techniques from several traditions, the book is organized so clinicians can customize the treatment plan based on each client’s needs.

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