Random Acts of Medicine The Hidden Forces That Sway Doctors, Impact Patients, and Shape Our Health

A groundbreaking book at the intersection of health and economics, revealing the hidden side of medicine and how unexpected—but predictable—events can profoundly affect our health.

Why do kids born in the summer get diagnosed more often with A.D.H.D.? How are marathons harmful for your health, even when you're not running? What do surgeons and salesmen have in common? Which annual event made people 30 percent more likely to get COVID-19?

As a University of Chicago–trained economist and Harvard medical school professor and doctor, Anupam Jena is uniquely equipped to answer these questions. And as a critical care doctor at Massachusetts General who researches health care policy, Christopher Worsham confronts their impact on the hospital’s sickest patients. In this singular work of science and medicine, Jena and Worsham show us how medicine really works, and its effect on all of us.

Relying on ingeniously devised natural experiments—random events that unknowingly turn us into experimental subjects—Jena and Worsham do more than offer readers colorful stories. They help us see the way our health is shaped by forces invisible to the untrained eye. Is there ever a good time to have a heart attack? Do you choose the veteran doctor or the rookie?  Do you really need the surgery your doctor recommends? These questions are rife with significance; their impact can be life changing. Addressing them in a style that’s both animated and enlightening, Random Acts of Medicine empowers you to see past the white coat and find out what really makes medicine work—and how it could work better.

ANUPAM B. JENA, MD, PhD, is an economist, physician, and professor at Harvard.  Named one of the 100 Great Leaders in Health Care by Becker’s Hospital Review, Jena hosts the Freakonomics, MD podcast, which explores the hidden side of healthcare.
 
CHRISTOPHER M. WORSHAM, MD, MPH is a researcher, pulmonologist, and critical care physician at Harvard. Jena and Worsham practice medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, and their research and writing have been published by the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, British Medical Journal, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post.