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Robert Finn |
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My first book is titled Cancer Clinical Trials:
Experimental Treatments & How They Can Help You. It was
published in Septemer 1999 by O'Reilly and
Associates as part of their Patient-Centered Guides series, and is now in its second printing. The
book is available for purchase in association with Amazon.com. I've
prepared a separate page with more information about Cancer Clinical
Trials.
Cancer Clinical Trials tells you everything you need to know about finding and evaluating experimental cancer treatments. While I don't recommend any specific treatments, I believe that everyone with a diagnosis of cancer owes it to themselves to evaluate available clinical trials along with their other treatment options. |
 | My second book in O'Reilly's Patient-Centered Guides series was published in February, 2000. This
one is titled Organ Transplants: Making the Most of Your Gift of
Life. I've prepared a separate page with
more information about Organ
Transplants. This book is now available for purchase from amazon.com
In Organ Transplants I tell the organ recipient, the potential organ recipient, and his or her family what to expect from this life-changing event. Transplant professionals like to say that a transplant does not restore a person to perfect health. On the contrary, the recipient is merely changing one serious medical condition for another. Transplant recipients need to cope with the lifetime responsibility of taking anti-rejection medications, many of which have significant side effects. They have to dodge the twin perils of infection and rejection. They have to deal with the emotional and financial consequences of transplant. Told from the medical consumer's point of view, Organ Transplants will help the recipient cope with this often overwhelming situation. |
"Two Steps Forward . . .:Despite a setback, gene therapy still promises to transform health care." Hippocrates, May 2000, pp. 18-21.
"Why Were NIH Adverse Event Reporting Guidelines Misunderstood? Journal of the National Cancer Institute, May 17, 2000, pp. 784-786.
"Navigating Clinical Trials" Hippocrates, April 2000, pp. 44-47.
"N.J. Health Insurers Offer a Laudable Model For Covering Some Costs of Cancer Clinical Trials: Move should increase participation, hasten pace of research" San Francisco Chronicle, January 6, 2000, p. A21
"Getting Clear Vision is a Complex Decision" OnHealth, August 28, 1998.
"Sound from Silence: The Development of Cochlear Implants" National Academy of Sciences' Beyond Discovery Series, August, 1998.
"N.J. Health Insurers Offer a Laudable Model For Covering Some Costs of Cancer Clinical Trials: Move should increase participation, hasten pace of research" San Francisco Chronicle, January 6, 2000, p. A21
"Scientists and the News Media Part II: How to Work With Reporters" H.M.S. Beagle. Vol. 1, Issue 10; posted June 13, 1997
"Scientists and the News Media Part III: How to Work With Institutional Public Relations People" H.M.S. Beagle. Vol. 1, Issue 13; posted July 25, 1997
In this series of opinion pieces, I argue that it's important for scientists to talk to the news media, and I advise scientists on how best to work with reporters and with their institutional public relations people.
This article won a Merit Award in the 1996 Publications Contest of the Society for Technical Communications. The most polarizing controversy among researchers on Alzheimer's Disease is: what actually causes the disease? Is it the accumulation of in the brain of "plaques," which are made of massive accumulation of a protein called beta-amyloid? Or are neurofibrillary tangles -- which are possibly related to a protein called "tau" and a gene family called "apoE" -- the real culprit? This article previewed a debate among the leaders of both camps that took place before a packed house at the 1995 meeting of the Society For Neuroscience.
People with Williams Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder, show amazing peaks and valleys of ability. Although their IQs are typically between 50 and 70, classifying them as mildly to moderately retarded, many have highly developed linguistic, musical, and interpersonal intelligences, yet they can't make change from a dollar. When this article appeared I began receiving letters from people who wrote that they never knew what their child's problem was until they read my article. Since an accurate diagnosis is critical to developing effective treatments for a disorder such as this, I found those letters extremely gratifying.
