UDM Libraries Book of the Week

By Adrian Alverez The world is experiencing an obesity epidemic. In both industrialized and emerging countries, the percentage of adults and children with obesity is increasing annually. It is no longer unusual to encounter a patient with extreme or morbid obesity in the operating room; these patients are routinely scheduled for every type of surgical procedure. Everyone involved in the peri-operative management of the surgical patient with morbid obesity – surgeons, anesthesiologists, internists, psychologists, nurses, nutritionists, respiratory therapists – must...

By Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell Unique among nations, America is deeply religious, religiously diverse, and remarkably tolerant. But in recent decades the nation’s religious landscape has been reshaped. America has experienced three seismic shocks, say Robert Putnam and David Campbell. In the 1960s, religious observance plummeted. Then in the 1970s and 1980s, a conservative reaction produced the rise of evangelicalism and the Religious Right. Since the 1990s, however, young people, turned off by that linkage between faith...

By Ben Shephard At the end of World War II, long before an Allied victory was assured and before the scope of the atrocities orchestrated by Hitler would come into focus or even assume the name of the Holocaust, Allied forces had begun to prepare for its aftermath. Taking cues from the end of the First World War, planners had begun the futile task of preparing themselves for a civilian health crisis that, due in large part to advances in...

By Josef Ruzek According to recent studies, at least one-fourth of military personnel returning from duty in Afghanistan and Iraq have received a diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD); approximately 10-15% of these veterans will experience significant symptoms. Whether the causes stem from a more complex environment in these post-9/11 war zones, or from more survivability because of improved body armor, better medical care, and more sophisticated diagnosis, the prevalence of PTSD and other war-related stress disorders among returning military...