Book Reviews
First published in 1996, this book aims to help students easily understand key concepts in evidence-based medicine and explain the logic and methodology of this approach. This year marks the publication of the fifth edition of the book, which has become a core textbook in medical schools around the world.
This book is a treasure. No one in naturopathic practice should be without it. So much of our practice has been reduced to telling our patients what not to eat. We should instead, for many patients, be actively instructing them in what to eat. Perhaps the most benefit may not come from shifting carbohydrate, fat, and protein ratios, but from getting them to spice up what they are already eating.
The newly released second edition, now titled Natural Approach to Gastroenterology, by Eric Yarnell, ND, is a major step forward not only to naturopathic education, but to the field of gastroenterology and the healthcare profession as a whole. Yarnell's book has been marketed as a resource for both the student and the busy clinician, though it is, first and foremost, a textbook, this review will focus on it's clinical utility.In addition to the material of obvious clinical utility, there is also much in this text impractical for daily clinical practice but illustrative for students.
Back in 1991 when Amy Rothenberg's husband Paul Herscu first book was published, it came as a shock. Rothenberg and Herscu had only graduated National College of Natural Medicine in 1986. With barely four years of clinical experience they had produced a volume, The Homeopathic Treatment of Children, that quickly become a foundation text for all of us. Even now, after 20 years in practice, I still read it regularly and marvel at the depth of the their knowledge.
When Alan Gaby's Nutritional Medicine textbook arrived in the mail, my first thought was, "This book weighs a lot." I walked over and placed it on the office scale. It weighs in at just over 8 pounds, 6 ounces. "Dr. Gaby birthed a textbook," I thought to myself. As I read the textbook, I realized that the analogy of birth was not far from the truth.
Some people have charisma. People are drawn to them, listen to them, like them, and follow them. Naturopath Rick Kirschner, ND, is one of those people. In his recent How to Click With People (Hyperion, 2011), Kirschner endeavors to share this gift with the rest of us. What we often find difficult is convincing the patient to follow any of our instructions. Compliance with a naturopathic treatment plan requires far more buy-in from the patient than they may have ever expended when seeing other primary care providers.
I have to admit that when I hefted Clinical Naturopathic Medicine by Leah Hechtman, ND, out of its delivery box, my first thoughts were along the lines of, “Whoa. This is a big book.” I know, not exactly my best example of penetrating insight. The book impresses with its 1,596 textbook-sized pages, and despite being bound in soft cover with a soothing and very natural picture of ginkgo leaves on the front cover, it is heavy and, frankly, rather commanding. However, its imposing girth gives way immediately to a genuinely delightful engrossment upon opening the book.
When I receive an advertisement for a conference claiming to feature the “world’s leading experts in complementary and alternative medicine,” the first thing I do is check to see how many NDs are on the speaker list. Early in my studies, a dearth of NDs felt like a blow to my professional esteem. Now, more than a decade later, I know better: It means a high probability that the organizers are neither knowledgeable nor serious about integrative medicine and are simply hoping to profit from the popularity of natural therapies.
A rigorously and meticulously documented crime shares with an autopsy at least two qualities. The first is that the important story is revealed in the details. The second is that, if it carries on for too long, the subject runs the risk of becoming somewhat stale.
We have reached the end of an anomalous period of history in which some distortion of the time space continuum appears to have turned things upside down, inside out, and backwards. We grew up and lived in a peculiar reality, during which chocolate was viewed negatively. For a good part of our lives, people have had a peculiar notion that chocolate was bad for you and either avoided eating it or felt guilty when they did.
