Remaking the American Patient: How Madison Avenue and Modern Medicine Turned Patients into Consumers

Nancy Tomes

In a work that spans the twentieth century, Nancy Tomes questions the popular - and largely unexamined - idea that in order to get good health care, people must learn to shop for it. Remaking the American Patient explores the consequences of the consumer economy and American medicine having come of age at exactly the same time.

Medicine & Public HealthMedicine & Public Health · medium confidenceMedicine & Public Health81 signalsLlm Classifier: Medicine & Public Health -> Medicine & Public HealthKeyword Classifier: American History -> American HistoryTopic Classifier: Constitutional History -> American HistoryConstitutional HistoryLabor, Work & OrganizingMedicine, Health & the BodyMoney, Markets & Economic Policy
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies

This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact.

  1. 01 Central figures

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

  2. 02 Central places

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

  3. 03 Suggested argument

    The book argues that good health care does not require people to learn to shop for it; it links the rise of American medicine and the consumer economy to turning patients into consumers.

    Model confidence 72%

  4. 04 Reading orientation

    56 / 100 academic

    Trade / academic crossover

    An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.

Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 78%.