Ordinary medicine : extraordinary treatments, longer lives, and where to draw the line / Sharon R. Kaufman.

Durham [North Carolina] ; London : Duke University Press, 2015.

xiii, 314 pages ; 23 cm.

Diagnosing twenty-first-century health care -- The quandary and unexamined ordinariness of twenty-first-century medicine. Ordinary medicine in our aging society : the dilemma of longevity -- The chain of health care drivers. The medical-industrial complex I : evidence-based medicine, the biomedical economy, and the ascendance of clinical trials ; The medical-industrial complex II : access, industry, and the clinical trials phenomenon ; "Reimbursement is critical for everything" : Medicare and the ethics of managing life -- Medicine's changing means and ends. Standard and necessary treatments : the changing means and ends of technology ; Family matters : kidneys and new forms of care ; Influencing the character of the future : prognosis, risk, and time left ; For whose benefit? : our shared quandary -- Toward a new social contract?

Includes bibliographical references (pages 255-305) and index.