The Patient Will See You Now

The Future of Medicine is in Your Hands

Contributors

By Eric Topol

On Sale
Oct 25, 2016
Page Count
384 pages
Publisher
Basic Books
ISBN-13
9780465040025

The essential guide to how digital technology enables all of us to take charge of our health 

“Dr. Topol’s vision is compelling, combining an empowering view of technology with the recognition that medicine requires something more.”―Wall Street Journal 


A trip to the doctor is almost a guarantee of misery: you make an appointment months in advance, wait for several hours when you arrive, talk to a doctor for fifteen minutes, then wait longer for lab tests, the results of which you’ll likely never see unless they indicate more invasive tests are needed, most of which will probably prove unnecessary—and your bill will be astronomical.  

In The Patient Will See You Now, Eric Topol, one of the nation’s top physicians, shows why medicine does not have to be that way. Medicine is in what Topol calls its “Gutenberg moment.” Much as the printing press took learning out of the hands of a priestly class, the mobile internet is doing the same for medicine, giving us unprecedented control over our healthcare. With smartphones in hand, we are no longer beholden to an impersonal and paternalistic system in which “doctor knows best.” Medicine has been digitized, Topol argues; now it will be democratized. 

Provocative and engrossing, The Patient Will See You Now is essential reading for anyone who thinks they deserve better health care. That is, for all of us. 

  • “In his new book, The Patient Will See You Now, Topol expertly builds upon his earlier path‑finding work and explores how smartphone adoption, big data, new digital monitors of medically relevant information streams, ubiquitous computing, and larger networks are all combining to revolutionize health care far beyond what most now expect‑with the exciting promise of lower costs and higher quality simultaneously. Coming from a world‑class physician with a unique perspective on the rapidly changing nature of medicine, Topol’s prescription for patient empowerment is a must read.”
    Al Gore
  • “Dr. Eric Topol is a pioneer of the medicine of the future and the future is now! Read this book and empower yourself for total well‑being.”
    Deepak Chopra
  • “Eric Topol has written a must‑read manifesto for patients who feel helpless. Filled with knowledge and engaging stories, this book shows how you can harness technology to be the master of your medical care‑or at least, a better partner for your doctor. I want Dr. Topol for my doctor.”
    Elisabeth Rosenthal, M.D., New York Times
  • “This book is full of technical wizardry and intriguing questions.”
    Washington Post
  • “Dr. Topol’s vision is compelling, combining an empowering view of technology with the recognition that medicine requires something more.”
    Wall Street Journal
  • “Dr. Topol’s overriding thesis is that the old days of ‘doctor knows best’ are as good as gone. No longer will doctors control medical data, treatment or profits. Instead, thanks to the newest science, humanity will finally achieve truly democratic health care.”
    New York Times
  • “Topol is one of medicine’s most innovative thinkers about the digital future… A valuable contribution to a fascinating subject.”
    New York Times Book Review
  • “In The Patient Will See You Now, Eric Topol charts how digitisation is slowly transforming medicine. Most industries have already been digitised‑‑the media, music, banking‑‑but perhaps the most important transformation will be in medicine, which still resembles something from the middle ages. Your mobile phone, for example, will analyse your heart beat for possible heart disease. Your DNA will be used to create new therapies and cures. The ‘tricorder’ of Star Trek, which analyses your health by simply scanning your body, is coming.”
    The Guardian
  • “A groundbreaking book… I think this book is revelatory and just plain smart.”
    Jim Cramer, CNBC’s Mad Money
  • “Dr. Eric Topol is one of the nation’s leading thinkers on the future of medicine.”
    Newt Gingrich, Newsmax
  • “Topol does a terrific job of laying out the immense potential of smartphones and iMedicine technologies to democratize medicine like never before… Topol’s writing style makes it very accessible for the lay person without any ‘dumbing down’ that would be a turnoff to health professionals. This is a must read for anyone that cares about healthcare… I can’t think of a book that does a better job of projecting how the future of medicine will unfold and the critical role individuals will play in their own health (beyond the obvious).”
    Dave Chase, Forbes.com
  • “It is rare to find a book that addresses quite technical topics so clearly, while interweaving stories about the variety of personalities who are shaping the field… The book is both scholarly, supported by careful footnoting, and encyclopedic – nearly every recent development challenging traditional notions of medicine is carefully evaluated.”
    Health Affairs
  • “The mantra defining the future of medicine, according to physician and author Eric Topol, is ‘Nothing about me without me.’ And in his new work, The Patient Will See You Now, that mantra animates a vision of medicine that, in everyday practice, is radically democratized and digitized, made accessible and dialogic through the use of handheld devices, open‑access records, iDocs, physician avatars and more.”
    Plain Dealer
  • “In The Patient Will See You Now, Eric Topol unveils a visionary new world of patient empowerment through apps.”
    The Independent (UK)
  • “Topol envisions a new era where we could have… access to our own medical data and the tools to heal ourselves without being completely at the mercy of our doctors… With an impressively well‑researched cache of examples, he explains the various gadgets attached to smartphones to carry out complex medical examinations that cost pennies, the potential for using the same cheap technology in poor countries where expensive medical equipment cannot be deployed and the potential for the opening up of patient data – which could then be shared across the world through the Internet to find diagnoses and trends on an unprecedented scale.”
    Winnipeg Free Press (Canada)
  • “Cardiologist Topol argues for taking down the boundaries separating the medical and digital worlds, boldly exploring how patients can shape the medicine of the future.”
    Publishers Weekly
  • “With its many charts, graphs, and citations, this forward‑thinking work will appeal to all educated health‑care consumers.”
    Library Journal
  • “Topol forecasts and engineers a new chapter in medicine… He foresees a future medical world profoundly bolstered by wireless Internet, where ‘each individual will have all their own medical data and the computing power to process it.’”
    Booklist
  • “A visionary physician predicts a technology‑driven, patient‑centered revolution in health care. In this work about the changes afoot in the world of medical care, Topol, in this natural follow‑up to his previous book, demonstrates the combination of intelligence and ambition that is apparent in his successful medical career… Not content to simply critique the current system (though he does so thoroughly and convincingly), the author strides optimistically into the future of health care… An expertly detailed, precisely documented exploration of the ‘power of information and individualization’ in health care.”
    Kirkus
  • “Dr. Eric Topol is uniquely positioned to map out a new era of democratized medicine.”
    Sanjay Gupta, M.D.
  • “The most extraordinary time for health care lies ahead. Dr. Topol presents a highly innovative vision and model for how, in an era of big data for each individual, medicine can be democratized.”
    Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts
  • “We are seeing a sea‑change in medicine, a time when the old paradigms no longer apply. As a physician and a scientist, Eric Topol has been both contributor and commentator to this revolution and therefore, one of the few people who can weave together and explain the stunning advances in seemingly unrelated fields. His personal voice, his ability to explain the most complex developments in science in a simple and engaging manner, and the clarity of his vision of the future make this compelling reading. I couldn’t put this book down and I learned so much. It has changed my perspective of what is to come.”
    Abraham Verghese, author of The Covenant of Water

Formats and Prices

Price

$19.99

Price

$24.99 CAD

Format

Format:

  1. Trade Paperback $19.99 $24.99 CAD
  2. ebook $14.99 $19.99 CAD

Eric Topol

About the Author

Dr. Eric Topol is the executive vice president and a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research, the largest nonprofit biomedical institute in the United States. He is also founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute and a practicing cardiologist. He was named to the Time 100 Health list of the most influential people in health in 2024. Dr. Topol writes the Substack newsletter Ground Truths and is the author of The Creative Destruction of Medicine, The Patient Will See You Now, and Super Agers

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