The Empowered Patient - by Lucy McBride (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A comprehensive health guide to take control of your body and mind while navigating a broken healthcare system.

As a primary care physician with her own healthcare struggles, Dr. Lucy McBride knows what it's like to feel lost--caught between a healthcare system that rushes through appointments focused on testing and prescriptions, and a wellness industry full of expensive false promises. She understands the frustration of conflicting advice, transactional encounters, and the sense that nobody is looking at the complete picture of your health.

In The Empowered Patient, Dr. McBride cuts through the noise with a practical framework to help you become an active partner in your care. Organized around four essential quadrants, this approach gives you the tools to take control of your health:

• Informatics: Understanding medical data--biometric and biographic--and how to make sense of it
• Input: Taking stock of everything you ingest, whether food, caffeine, over the counter and prescription medication, supplements, alcohol, etc.
• Infrastructure: Understanding your body's physical structure and mechanics
• Insight: Caring for your cognitive, emotional and mental health to navigate stress, anxiety, grief, loss, and the challenges of being alive

The Empowered Patient is like having a trusted doctor by your side, helping you ask better questions, advocate for yourself, and reframe what it means to be healthy. Whether you're managing a chronic condition, navigating a new diagnosis, seeking better care, or simply trying to make sense of conflicting health advice, this book is your guide to reclaiming agency over your health.

About the Author

Lucy McBride, MD, is a primary care physician and cofounder of the Ackerly McBride Group in Washington, DC. For over twenty-five years, she has practiced evidence-based, relationship-centered medicine. A graduate of Princeton and Harvard Medical School, with a master's degree in pharmacology from Cambridge as a Fulbright Scholar, she completed her internal medicine residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital. She writes the weekly newsletter Are You Okay? and hosts the podcast Beyond the Prescription. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and USA TODAY. She has contributed to CNN, MSNBC, and PBS, advocating for a holistic, patient-centered approach to health.