medical care

In the spring of 1974, as the last American troops were being pulled out of Vietnam, Ron Kovic and a small group of other severely injured veterans in a California VA hospital launched the American Veterans Movement. In a phenomenal feat of political organizing, Kovic corralled his fellow AVM members into staging a sit-in, and then a hunger strike, in the Los Angeles office of Senator Alan Cranston, demanding better treatment of injured and disabled veterans. This was a short-lived and chaotic but ultimately successful movement to improve the deplorable conditions in VA hospitals across the country. Hurricane Street is their story--one that resonates deeply today--told by Kovic in the passionate and brutally honest style that led to over one million sales of Born on the Fourth of July.

For women in Victorian times, especially those born into wealth like Florence Nightingale, working outside the home was frowned upon. A job as lowly and dirty as nursing was out of the question. Despite this, Nightingale felt compelled to be a nurse. She pushed hard against society's rules and her family's objections to answer her call, and bravely forged her own path.

A memoir from a SEAL and medic in which he explores his 25-year career in dangerous combat missions and the post-traumatic stress disorder that developed at home.

Covers the early years, education, and war experiences of 104 African American physicians who volunteered their services during World War I. These 104 men joined the U.S. Army to care for the 40,000 men of the 92nd and 93rd Divisions, the Army's only Black combat units. The 93rd arrived in Europe to help the French fill the gaps in their decimated lines. The 92nd division came later and fought alongside the white American units. Some of these doctors rose to prominence, others died young or later succumbed to the economic and social challenges of the times.

Japan's worst nuclear radiation accident took place at a uranium reprocessing facility in Tokaimura, northeast of Tokyo, on September 30, 1999. The direct cause of the accident was cited as the depositing of a uranyl nitrate solution--containing about 16.6 kg of uranium, which exceeded the critical mass--into a precipitation tank. Three workers were exposed to extreme doses of radiation. Hiroshi Ouchi, one of those workers, was transferred to the University of Tokyo Hospital Emergency Room three days after the accident. Dr. Maekawa and his staff initially thought that Ouchi looked relatively well for a person exposed to such radiation levels. He could talk, and only his right hand was a little swollen with redness. However, his condition gradually weakened as the radioactivity broke down the chromosomes in his cells. The doctors were at a loss as to what to do. There were very few precedents and proven medical treatments for the victims of radiation poisoning then. This book documents the following eighty-three days of treatment.

In November 1942, Paul Andrew Kennedy (1912-1993) boarded the St. Elena in New York Harbor and sailed for Casablanca as part of Operation Torch, the massive Allied invasion of North Africa. As a member of the US Army's 2nd Auxiliary Surgical Group, he spent the next thirty-four months working in North Africa, Italy, France, and Germany, in close proximity to the front lines and often under air or artillery bombardment. Kennedy participated in some of the fiercest action of the war, including Operation Avalanche, the attack on Anzio, and Operation Dragoon. He also arrived in Rome the day after the Allied troops, and entered the Dachau concentration camp two days after it was liberated.

Chronicles the experiences of American nurses who served in the Philippines during World War II.

" ... [a] memoir from a physical therapist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the birthplace of physical therapy and the world leader in prosthetic rehabilitation for injured war veterans"--Provided by publisher.

Lynda Van Devanter tells of joining the Army as a nurse in 1969 and working for a year in Vietnam, emphasizing the effects of the experience on her life.