This is the third volume of the successful series that Giorgio Dobrilla, with patience and competence, he dedicated to his patients, that is, presumably, to non-medical graduates. This time the author, now a regular guest of this column, avails himself of the collaboration of Alessandro Cimino, a young graduate in computer science and expert in bibliographic research. And, like the first volume of the trilogy, this too is enriched by the preface by Piero Angela.
The main purpose of this third work by Dobrilla (“Unusual” medicine for non-doctors, C1V Edizioni) is to remember errors or misdeeds in the medical field that citizens often ignore or forget, and open the eyes of many naive people to the phantasmagorical hoaxes that are frequently fed to them by the media, by superficial journalists, by pseudo-doctors and sometimes (unfortunately) also by doctors.
As in the two previous volumes, but perhaps with even greater incisiveness, Dobrilla draws attention both to very serious issues (such as the interference of the judiciary on some medical issues and which cannot be resolved by the law of men), and to curious topics and fun, to inform without boring, but always with the intention of helping us understand how things are.
The volume is structured in 7 + 2 sections dedicated respectively to:
1. Medicine, the judiciary and politics;
2. Pseudosciences: inconsistency, risks and co-responsibility;
3. Disinformation and scientific pseudo-popularization;
4. Preventions that matter;
5. Cardiovascular system: useful information;
6. Gastrointestinal system: useful information;
7. Difficult and strange diseases.
The eighth section it is a miscellany of circumstances that cannot be cataloged in the first seven, and will not fail to pique the interest of the reader. Where to live the last days of life, at home or in the hospital? Does the use of mobile phones really take risks? Are women also discriminated against in medicine? Can post-traumatic stress after the Twin Towers tragedy persist after many years? What is the difference between race and ethnicity?
The ninth section is dedicated to paramedical curiosities, and Dobrilla makes us aware of the medical significance of being transsexual, undergoing castration, being in love and many other circumstances, including the relationship between health and tennis (the Author was world champion for the category amateur doctors).
–
