ISPS SPECIAL BOOK EVENT
The Institution for Social and Policy Studies (ISPS) invites the Yale community to a special event to celebrate Peter Swenson’s new book, Disorder: A History of Reform, Reaction, and Money in American Medicine (Yale University Press), meticulously tracing the dramatic conflicts both inside organized medicine and between the medical profession and the larger society over quality, equality, and economy in health care.
Addressing topics such as public health, medical education, pharmaceutical regulation, and health care access, Swenson, the C. M. Saden Professor of Political Science and faculty fellow with ISPS, paints a disturbing picture of a century of entanglements involving medicine, politics, and profit seeking. Disorder explains why the United States remains the only economically advanced democracy without universal health care, why the quality of care – despite exceptionally high health spending – leaves much to be desired, and why the public health system is, as the Institute of Medicine puts it, “in disarray.”
Swenson’s incisive look into the problematic relationships among medicine, politics, and business in America and their effects on the nation’s health received honorable mention from the American Political Science Association for the 2022 Greenstone award for best book in politics and history.
Please RSVP and join us on November 2nd at 4:00 p.m. for this 75-minute event featuring introductory remarks followed by a presentation by Peter Swenson, comments from Yale School of Public Health Professor of Health Policy Mark Schlesinger, and an audience Q&A.
Wine, cheese, and other refreshments will be served.
“Disorder is a comprehensive, revealing and surprising account of the history of American medicine: its underappreciated contributions and better-known failings. A must-read for students of the medical profession.”
—David Blumenthal, M.D., President, the Commonwealth Fund and co-author of Heart of Power: Health and Politics in the Oval Office
“A necessary and worthy successor to Paul Starr’s momentous Social Transformation of American Medicine.”
—George D. Lundberg, M.D., former JAMA editor and author of Severed Trust: Why American Medicine Hasn’t Been Fixed
“A bold, zealous reassessment. Certain to animate spirited debate over the political transformations underlying America’s medical disorder.”
—John Harley Warner, author of Dissection and Locating Medical History