Mother of Methadone: A Doctor's Quest, a Forgotten History, and a Modern-Day Crisis

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Synopsis
Brings together the stories of two doctors battling the opioid epidemic half a century apart to reveal the origins of today's public health crisis A call to remove the stigma against addicts, addiction, and treatment providersDr. Melody Glenn was a burned-out emergency physician who had grown to resent the large population of opioid dependent patients passing through her ER. While working at a methadone clinic, she realized how effective harm reduction treatments could be and set out to discover why they weren&’t used more broadly. That&’s when she found Dr. Marie Nyswander.In the 1960&’s, Nyswander defied the DEA and medical establishment to co-develop methadone maintenance as a treatment for heroin addiction. According to some addiction specialists, its discovery could be considered as monumental as the discovery of penicillin. Yet, it still carries a stigma today.Deftly weaving together interviews, media coverage, and historical documents, Glenn recovers Nyswander&’s important legacy and reveals how the forces of racism, fearmongering politicians, and misinformation colluded to set us back decades in our understandings of opioids.With Nyswander as her guide, Glenn also shares her journey through addiction medicine as she confronts her own personal and philosophical quandaries around bias, ambition, and saviorism in the medical field.As the US continues to struggle with opioid and fentanyl use in communities, Mother of Methadone is a powerful reminder of the ways biases have prevented doctors from saving countless lives.
Copyright:
2025

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
Book Size:
232 Pages
ISBN-13:
9780807017753
Related ISBNs:
9780807017760, 9780807020906, 9780807020913, 9780807024409
Publisher:
Beacon Press
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
Melody Glenn
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
History, Nonfiction, Psychology, Social Studies, Medicine
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.

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