The Handbook of Wellness Medicine

Book Title: The Handbook of Wellness Medicine

Author: Waguih William IsHak, MD, Editor

Publication Information: Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, 2020, 652 pp., $64.99

The importance of well-being and quality of life has never been more clear than during the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. One could therefore find serendipity in the 2020 publication of The Handbook of Wellness Medicine, an excellent reference for all things connecting medicine and the pursuit of well-being. Edited by Dr Waguih IsHak, an accomplished professor of psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles, and including an impressive list of contributors from all walks of medicine, the handbook contains evidence-based resources for the pursuit of “restoration and maintenance of health.”

In the first chapter, IsHak takes a helpful initial step by defining “wellness,” framing the target for the rest of the materials included in the following chapters. The book is divided into sections addressing organ systems, populations, evidence, and integration into daily life. These sections focus on assessment and measurement of wellness, wellness by organ systems, improving wellness in special populations, the evidence behind specific wellness interventions, and wellness integration into normal life routines. Each chapter breaks down its overarching section into greater detail, laying out specific references that connect the topic at hand to the pursuit of wellness. Major organ systems, and their role in the overall goal for wellness, are addressed via evidence-based references; an impressive bibliography, both in length and in substance, is included at the conclusion of each chapter. The handbook covers a variety of subjects such as nutrition, sleep, pain, pets, humor, and spirituality. The materials are concisely and effectively presented in charts, tables, and case vignettes; this is a reference book, after all!

The Handbook of Wellness Medicine is an effective reference for any reader looking for a one-stop source for guidance in the pursuit of improving wellness. An area for improvement for future editions of this book would be to consider a different title, or to add a more descriptive subtitle. “The Handbook of Wellness Medicine” potentially does itself a disservice by not emphasizing the extensive focus on evidence-based medicine that Dr IsHak and the contributing authors have clearly prioritized during the book’s compilation. Medical educators will find this book particularly useful, not only as a tool for educating their learners on the methods by which wellness can be pursued, but also in the instruction of self-care for medical students and residents, a topic of paramount importance. This is a reference source worthy of any physician’s bookshelf; that is where you’ll find my copy.