by Pamela Nagami
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Product Description
A normal, healthy woman becomes host to a pork tapeworm that is burrowing into her brain and disabling her motor abilities.
A handsome man contracts Chicken Pox and ends up looking like the victim of a third degree burn.
A vigorous young athlete is bitten by an insect and becomes a target for flesh-eating strep.
Even the most innocuous everyday activities such as eating a salad for lunch, getting bitten by an insect, and swimming in the sea bring human beings into contact with dangerous, often deadly microorganisms. In The Woman with a Worm in Her Head, Dr. Pamela Nagami reveals-through real-life cases-the sobering facts about some of the world's most horrific diseases: the warning signs, the consequences, treatments, and most compellingly, what it feels like to make medical and ethical decisions that can mean the difference between life and death.
Unfailingly precise, calmly instructive, and absolutely engrossing, The Woman with the Worm in Her Head offers both useful information and enjoyable reading.
Amazon.com
As a "bugs and drugs doc," Pamela Nagami has seen some of the worst diseases known to humankind--flesh-eating strep, parasitic worms that zigzag through the brain, and AIDS, the biggest infectious disease emergency around. Some of the infections profiled in Maneater can smolder for years before rearing up and killing their unsuspecting human host; others seem innocuous, like chickenpox, which can nevertheless devastate a body. Others, like malaria, travel from other countries, but equally dangerous microbes live in American soil, just waiting to be disturbed by a backhoe or a runner and inhaled in a single breath. These indelible dispatches from the frontlines of infectious disease reveal the danger lurking in everything from salads to the air we breathe, the heroic actions of doctors faced with these bizarre cases on a daily basis, and the limits of medical miracles. Like a detective unraveling a crime scene, Nagami shows us how the most innocuous actions can hurt us, or save our lives. --Lesley Reed
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 An excellent, riveting read, 2008-08-22
I have a feeling that those who did not approve of this book are not very familiar with medicine, especially in a public health aspect. Perhaps they only are familiar with the fictitious medical dramas as their basis for knowledge? In any event, Dr. Nagami had me from the very beginning, when she compared her waitressing job to being a doctor. It's very hard to not feel down to earth when she discusses her life (where she also has a special needs child) along with her professional life. They are lived concurrently, and she recalls all these stories with great detail. Truly, Dr. Nagami makes Malaria, Measles, pork worms and Chickenpox some of the nastiest (but most riveting) antagonists that you've read about in a while. The more interesting part is that this is a recollection of a real story. She is a great writer - I could barely put this book down. A must read, especially for the public healthers like me :)
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
fascinating read, 2008-07-14
This book was exactly what I had expected. Short stories describing real life incidents involving infectious or parasitic diseases affecting the human body. The author was successful in writing the book so the layman could easily understand the language. Because I had read many other books on these topics before, I wasn't as scared of some of the stories as I may have been. I did however have eye opening learning experiences with some of the stories - in particular the one on chickenpox. The author was also successful in bringing the humanity into these stories and the trials and tribulations of the medical staff that have to deal with these situations and try to solve them. An excellent quick introduction to some of the more devastating illnesses of humankind.
I immediately ordered Nagami's "Bitten" because I liked this book so much.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Absolutely amazing!, 2008-05-29
I read this book for my microbiology class. It was amazing. The case stories were so interesting, I didn't want to put the book down! 5 stars all the way :)
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Interested in Infectious Diseases, 2007-11-05
I bought this book based off the title, the reviews and my interest in parasites and infectious diseases. I currently am on the eleventh chapter (more than half way through the book) and I not only overall have enjoyed the book but I have also learned something from it. We all have our doctor visits and we get treated for whatever it is that ails us but, we never really think about what the doctor feels or what their life is like outside of the office they work in. We all can imagine how many hours they work and what not getting enough sleep could mean to a person. She tells in an honest way of her lack of knowledge in some areas which makes me respect her more as a person because we think of doctors as healers that they are supposed to have the answers. There will be times that things occur that they will not have an answer and even after concurring with other physicians a diagnosis still may be hard. This book gives insight to that. It connects you to the patient and the doctor instead of just the patient. I enjoyed that a lot. I learned from it and I will add it to my collection of books. I always had an interest in infectious diseases and parasites but never could stomach the idea of what studying it at a university entails. I read at home and learn that way. When someone asked what book I was reading, I said the title and they scrunched their nose up at it. You have to be open minded.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 What to expect to find in this book, 2007-06-04
This is certainly a well-written book about rare infectious diseases and rare manifestations of ordinary diseases. The author exhibits great feeling for the critically ill patients she cares for, as well as their problems and social difficulties. But this is not a book remotely like the works of Paul deKruif, Deborah Hayden, Berton Rouche, and others. The author is NOT a journalist or an academic researcher. She is a front-line clinician, which leads her to bring a depth of personal feeling (and tragedy) to these stories that is quite lacking from most tales of medical triumphs and tragedies.
Unfortunately, medical science is moving much more rapidly than such feeling case histories (spanning a lifetime of service) can make it to the public (even the limited audience for this book). This means the cases are true to the historical state of medical technology and present occasional questions to an informed reader. To her credit, Ms. Nagami pulls no punches about the fact that many of her expiring patients die from iatrogenic effects of their treatment, rather than the original disease. Similarly, although she points out where historical errors were made in diagnosis and treatment, the less obvious mistakes which only became apparent in retrospect due to the continuing development of medical technology necessarily go unrecognized in her book. (If it remains in print for a long time it could be updated.) She also tells of a few obvious instances of inadequate or marginally competent medical care, but lets them pass without judgmental comment.
In short, this is a very unusual book. Few clinicians have enough time to write for a popular audience. She achieves her objective of making the reader aware of medical dangers they may not have thought of, but 2/3 or more of these dangers are consequential to medical treatment of the presenting condition, a subject which some might think deserved more inquiry. These moving tales are basically stories of a presenting condition, the horrors it produces, and the problems of treating the condition using methods that (necessarily) may prove as deadly as the original, especially if you contracted it in the ICU.
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