“The End of Healing takes us deep into the world of health care’s injustices and distortions. Don is all of us. When the bright light of investigation shines on this or that failure—be it the profit motives that feed extreme wealth or the pretensions of those who have forced clunky electronic health records on the rank and file— all of us feel the pain. Bailey takes this revelation to a deeply personal level. Don is a true humanist. He feels the pain that we all acknowledge…The End of Healing is a call to action. This is a summary of what we know to be true. The pain points are connected. All of us are served by Bailey’s extraordinary diligence and artful weaving of facts and painful epiphanies into a familiar story. Now we have work to do..”
—JOHN D. GOODSON, MD, SGIM Forum, Book Review
“…a wild ride into the underworld of medicine….Highly enjoyable thriller. An excellent page turner.”
—Dr. CYNTHIA LEA CLARK, PsyD, PhD, FMAM–Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine
“In the muckraking style of Upton Sinclair, Dr. Jim Bailey has written a modern-day The Jungle, but it’s the health-care industry under the microscope in The End of Healing. Everything you never wanted to know about the skewed practices of health insurance, medicine for profit, and doctors who have lost sight of their healing mission come to bear in Bailey’s heavy-hitting fictionalized account of a story you know is happening this very minute in America….Engaging and informative, anyone seeking to journey down the rabbit hole to the not-so-fuzzy flip side will be fascinated, troubled, and overall better informed about health care as we know it in America.”
—FELICIA SEEBURGER, 5-star review, Book of the Day, FOREWORD Reviews
“The End of Healing by Jim Bailey is a very complex novel. By putting real issues in a fictional setting, it is easier to gain an understanding of what is really happening. The character of the protagonist is very well written. Watching him evolve is a learning experience in itself. Having taken a bio ethics course in college, I wish that this had been my textbook because I was so fascinated in this story…I highly recommend reading The End of Healing.”
—PAIGE LOVITT, Reader Views
“An absolutely fascinating new read by author Jim Bailey,…Both entertaining and able to impart the truth of our troubled medical system, this story will captivate readers from the very start….Any reader with the slightest interest in our medical system should put this on the top of their “to be read” list.”
—TRACY A. FISHER, 5-star review, Readers’ Favorite Book Reviews
“Author Jim Bailey’s debut novel, The End Of Healing is an outstanding read that is as thoughtful and thought-provoking as it is fully engaging from beginning to end. On a theme that could be ripped from today’s newspaper headlines, The End Of Healing focuses on how America’s healthcare industry has become corrupted, along with other fundamental institutions such as the American government and even the hallowed halls of academia. A riveting read that is highly recommended for community library collections…”
—Reviewer’s Choice, Midwest Book Review
“Jim Bailey’s brilliant first novel narrates the journey of a young healer into the depths of a modern healthcare hell that parallels the path taken by Dante Alighieri through his Inferno 700 years ago. His young protagonist uncovers unsuspected corruption at the roots of the problems in American medicine and powerful business interests trading people’s health for profit. The End of Healing is a must read for anyone hungry for a spiritual context to help them understand the true forces at work in American healthcare and our path to a better future.”
—PHYLLIS TICKLE, founding religion editor, Publishers Weekly
“The End of Healing is a remarkable book. It’ll make you sad and angry at the same time. Then you’ll become afraid…. And that fear could save your life.”
—DON DONALDSON, author of The Memory Thief
“’Follow the money!’ That’s the advice Dr. Virgil Sampson gives his three students in the Health System Science Program at fictional Florence College….How wrong is [U.S. health care]? Based on the evidence in The End of Healing, it’s enough to make you sick—and, if you’re not already—outraged.”
—LEONARD GILL, The Memphis Flyer
“This is a splendid book – really two books…because it blends a fictional account that held my interest with a well-documented history of how American medicine has evolved over the past several decades…Using dialogue and skillful portrayals of characters and situations…the author portrays a health-care system spiraling out of control, one that puts profits, power and prestige ahead of patients. That part, alas, is not fiction..”
—JOE VANDERVEER, M.D., The Oslerian
“Bailey’s novel…featur[es] an idealistic young physician who is horrified when he suddenly comes to realize that despite his Hippocratic vow to do no harm, harm has become his business….his young protagonist, Dr. Don Newman, takes the reader through a virtual healthcare hazing: procedures for profit, drug reactions, medication errors, hospital infections, lack of health insurance, unnecessary surgery, piles of paperwork and healthcare profiteers, all contributing to hundreds of thousands of lost lives annually.”
—LARRY BUSER, Memphis Medical News
“Dr. Jim Bailey’s The End of Healing offers in fictional form a tour de force on the American healthcare system, pulling back the curtain to reveal the forces that have converged to create a system more focused on power, prestige and profit than healthcare. This well-researched and insightful work represents a major resource for the sociology of health and healthcare and for anyone interested in the history of American medicine.”
—RICHARD THOMAS, PHD, medical sociologist and author of Marketing Health Services
“Bailey’s characters connect us with heart wrenching truths about our medical system. He translates his extensive knowledge of our health care system into the powerful medium of story. His characters display the cost our system has on those in need of care and on those giving it. The End of Healing is a terrific guide through the mire that is the modern medical industry. The reader follows three insiders in a tale of love, passion, and search for healing as they “follow the money” and uncover the hidden secrets of that awful world.”
—JEANNE JEMISON, MD, pediatrician and palliative care fellow
“The book [is frequently] compared to works by Dan Brown and John Grisham — and yes, there’s a little of each author in the novel’s conspiratorial subplots. More striking, Bailey’s heard The End of Healing compared to Ayn Rand — and yes, there are lengthy philosophical discussions in these pages too.”
—LEONARD GILL, The Memphis Flyer
“Readers looking to understand the inner workings of the American health care system…[will find that]…his fictional rendering of medical training, administration, and practice put[s] faces on real issues in health care—and the ways that too often health care turns into the opposite of healing.”
—SCOTT MORRIS, The Church Health Reader
“The End of Healing is an engrossing, entertaining, highly informative story, written for anyone who doesn’t want to read eight gazillion scientific reports to understand why health care costs so much in America, why the U.S. still lags behind many countries in basic health indicators, and what we need to do about it.”
—PAT MORGAN, author of The Concrete Killing Fields
“A fascinating and entertaining novel that could easily serve as a text book for an introductory health policy course.”
—MAX MICHAEL, MD, Dean, UAB School of Public Health
“[Dr. Jim Bailey’s] intimate knowledge of public health is the foundation for the novel….[He has] already been compared to such nationally know authors as Dan Brown and John Grisham.”
—VICTOR CARROZZA, Memphis Medical Society Quarterly
“The End of Healing was one of the most engrossing and engaging books I have read in a long time…[It] was a fascinating and often enraging novel about healthcare in America today, and those who chose to do something about it. I would highly recommend this to anyone who likes a thrilling story full of actual facts and insight.”
—AYMEE, Bitten by Books
“This is a powerful book….dare to open this tome, read the first page and you’re hooked.”
—MARY ANN SMYTH, BookLoons
“The End of Healing is an insightful condemnation of the American healthcare system…The fictional subplot is well-written even with the standard romantic triangle. What grips readers is the interwoven denunciating documentation…that makes a profound case that “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” (Dylan Thomas) is not always the right thing for the patient but always great for the bottom line.”
—HARRIET KLAUSNER, MBR Bookwatch
“The End of Healing is a wake up call for Americans….a must-read for care providers, patients and everyone else.”
—MARK DAVIS, MD, FACOG, Operating Room Safety Consultant