The Second Sickness: Contradictions of Capitalist Health Care

by Howard Waitzkin

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.

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Howard Waitzkin is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of New Mexico and practices internal medicine part time in New Mexico and Illinois. For many years he has been active in struggles focusing on social medicine in the United States and Latin America.