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The University of North Carolina Press
224 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 5 illus., 4 figs., 12 tables, notes, index
Confronting Back Pain in an Overtreated Society
Nortin Hadler knows backaches. For more than three decades as a physician and medical researcher, he has studied the experience of low back pain in people who are otherwise healthy. Hadler terms the low back pain that everyone suffers at one time or another "regional back pain." In this book, he addresses the history and treatment of the ailment with the healthy skepticism that has become his trademark, taking the "Hadlerian" approach to backaches and the backache treatment industry in order to separate the helpful from the hype.
Basing his critique on an analysis of the most current medical literature as well as his clinical experience, Hadler argues that regional back pain is overly medicalized by doctors, surgeons, and alternative therapists who purvey various treatment regimens. Furthermore, he observes, the design of workers' compensation, disability insurance, and other "health" schemes actually thwarts getting well. For the past half century, says Hadler, back pain and back pain-related disability have exacted a huge toll, in terms of pain, suffering, and financial cost. Stabbed in the Back addresses this issue at multiple levels: as a human predicament, a profound social problem, a medical question, and a vexing public-policy challenge. Ultimately, Hadler's insights illustrate how the state of the science can and should inform the art and practice of medicine as well as public policy. Stabbed in the Back will arm any reader with the insights necessary to make informed decisions when confronting the next episode of low back pain.
"A bitter pill--but one that should trigger a much needed debate among health-care reformers."
--Publishers Weekly
"Relentlessly probes the effectiveness of common medical treatments and finds them wanting. . . . [A] compelling book."
--Library Journal
"Nortin Hadler exposes the overmanagement of a sometimes-contrived disease with a compelling body of scientific investigation."
--Mehmet Oz, M.D., New York Presbyterian Hospital, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University
"Dr. Hadler brings a fresh epistemology to the entity described as back pain. His gift with words and his scientific knowledge provide a freshness that allows each of us confronting back pain and its insidious nature to rethink our current and future needs. This brilliant work will stand as his best work for decades to come."
--James N. Weinstein, D.O., M.S., professor and chair of orthopedic surgery at Dartmouth College, Medical School; director of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice
"In clear and compelling language, Nortin Hadler explains the dilemma of back pain and all the ways that patients can be misled. This book is a must read for those suffering as well as for the rest of our society, so we can better remedy ailments with fewer drugs, fewer surgeries, and greater wisdom."
--Jerome Groopman, M.D., Recanati Professor, Harvard Medical School, author of How Doctors Think
"Abu Ali Sina, 'Avicenna,' was an unsurpassed eleventh-century Persian clinician, teacher, polymath, 'philosophe,' and prolific writer of scientific papers, treatises, and textbooks. Nortin Hadler is the twenty-first-century Avicenna."
--Assad Meymandi, M.D., Ph.D., DLFAPA, University of North Carolina School of Medicine
Cloth: $25.00
© 2009 The University of North Carolina Press
116 South Boundary Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27514-3808
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