Book: Unaccountable - What Hospitals Won't Tell You and How Transparency Can Revolutionize Health Care

<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13538861-unaccountable" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Unaccountable: What Hospitals Won't Tell You and How Transparency Can Revolutionize Health Care" border="0" src="http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344317040m/13538861.jpg" /></a><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13538861-unaccountable">Unaccountable: What Hospitals Won't Tell You and How Transparency Can Revolutionize Health Care</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5786795.Marty_Makary">Marty Makary</a><br/>
My rating: <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/590250404">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />

Everyone in America should read this book to be informed about our medical care in the United States. It is written by a doctor who wants "regular" people to understand the risks and benefits of their health care. Dr. Marty Makary wants us to know that we have a right to take charge of our health and all decisions involved in it. It is not shocking to read that many procedures done are driven strictly by the increase in profit and not because of the necessity to a patient's health. It is downright scary!

It took courage for Dr. Makary to write a book like this about his field in medicine and the many problems within it: thousands of incompetent doctors , the secrecy behind pushing dangerous and unnecessary treatments and surgeries solely to increase profit margin, kickbacks doctors receive for using chemotherapy despite scientific fact of its toxicity to humans, performing organ transplants instead of just partially removing a tumor because then the patient needs to be on lifetime meds and complications, the "never should happen" events such as wrong limbs amputated or foreign objects being left inside surgery patients, and the list could go on and on. I am so glad I read this book! Yes, I am grateful for the advances in technology and medicine. But it is good to be informed because that is how we can make intelligent choices.

Kudos to Dr. Marty Makary for taking the initiative to do and say what needs to happen! He is truly a model of leadership education.

<br/><br/>
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/1264222-maria">View all my reviews</a>

Standardized Tests

I loved reading the book Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire by Rafe Esquith. One of my favorite quotes is found on page 73. Teacher Rafe Esquith says, "The testing obsession that has swept our nation's schools is detrimental to helping children reach their potential as students AND [my own personal emphasis!] human beings!!..Despite the fact that standardized testing was conceived to help our children succeed, in practice, it has only contributed to their failure."

My own recollections of standardized testing known as the CAT, or California Achievement Test, are laughable. Every year, my scores improved by leaps and bounds. And the reason it did was that we received the identical test all four years. I would remember the questions which I knew I answered wrong and I would look up the correct answers so next year it would be right. That was my coping mechanism for the standardized testing madness. By my senior year, I tested in each area at 12.9 +. I was the model student and my high school loved having me there. By my unconventional method of test results improvement, I felt that I had beat the system, a system I was so against. But did I feel any smarter? Absolutely not!

Now that I am an adult, I am appreciative of the life-long learning which I have continued to pursue. No one has coerced me. I simply enjoy it. I feel I have obtained a liberal arts education. No formal degree required.

I ran across the following link to an article I found very interesting.

http://www.maa.org/saum/articles/wiggins_appendix.html

May we break loose of the shackles of our past schooling and liberate ourselves with life-long learning!