The Second Sickness: Contradictions of Capitalist Health Care

Since the appearance of Waitzkin’s The Second Sickness, a landmark book of the 1980s, American medicine has been dramatically transformed. Waitzkin’s earlier edition used qualitative research to take readers inside the “black box” of medical decisionmaking. This new, fully updated and expanded edition retains the earlier edition's vivid approach and adds timely analysis of how managed care and other economic and social forces influence medical practice today.