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Medical treatment of elderly people is not working. Worse, it is often harmful, says author John Sloan, a family physician who has worked primarily with the elderly for more than twenty years. In A Bitter Pill, he examines why medical treatment—from modern medicine’s one-size-fits-all prevention strategy to hospital stays that don’t benefit anyone—is failing them and identifies solutions to the problem.

In clear, accessible language, Sloan argues that we must understand what people in poor health at the end of their lives really need: comfort, dignity, and quality of life. He also argues that caregivers, sons, daughters, nurses, doctors, and social workers—all of us—must assume responsibility for what happens to the elderly and give these loved ones the kind of care we hope, one day, someone will give us.

John Sloan, MD is a senior academic physician in the Department of Family Practice at the University of British Columbia and has spent most of his thirty years of practice caring for the frail elderly in Vancouver. He has lectured throughout Canada and in Europe and the United States, and is sought after as an inspirational speaker on geriatrics. He lives in Vancouver and Roberts Creek, B.C.