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Beyond the Prescription

A Doctor's Guide to Taking Charge of Your Health

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Pub Date Aug 11 2026 | Archive Date Aug 21 2026

Simon Element | S&S/Simon Element


Description

If you’ve ever left a doctor’s appointment with a prescription but no plan, a stack of “normal” lab results but no answers, or the feeling that no one actually listened, you’re not alone.

In Beyond the Prescription, Dr. Lucy McBride explains why: Modern health care prioritizes transactions over relationships, screens over stories, and data over context. Into that void has stepped a massive wellness industry offering seductive promises of control—“optimize,” “detox,” “biohack”—often without evidence and with real risks.

McBride refuses the false choice between conventional medicine and wellness culture. Instead, she offers a practical middle path built on health agency: the capacity to make informed decisions aligned with your values while advocating effectively for support. This book isn’t prescriptive or perfectionist. It’s a framework to help you navigate uncertainty, misinformation, and the realities of your life.

At the center is a five-step process that moves you from redefining health on your own terms, through mapping your full health ecosystem and understanding how you personally approach care, to asking for help more effectively and making peace with what you cannot control.

McBride then maps health as an interconnected ecosystem with four pillars:

-INFORMATICS (health data + your biography and lived context)
-INPUTS (everything you consume, including supplements and medications)
-INFRASTRUCTURE (movement, injury, disability, and the body that carries you)
-INSIGHT (mental health, brain health, and the unconscious stories that drive behavior)

Reflection and action guides help you translate insight into real-world decisions.

The result is a practical, evidence-based guide for anyone navigating the question too rarely asked in health care: Are you okay?
If you’ve ever left a doctor’s appointment with a prescription but no plan, a stack of “normal” lab results but no answers, or the feeling that no one actually listened, you’re not alone.

In Beyond...

Advance Praise

"A must-read book for anyone who has ever felt confused or lost in today’s healthcare system—which I am pretty sure is everyone! This book empowers you with clear information, practical skills, and simple activities to help you take control of your care and not be led astray by influencers and the wellness industry. I look forward to more patients coming into my office confident and knowing the value of mental health to their overall health!" —Jessi Gold, MD MS, psychiatrist and author of the bestselling book How Do You Feel?

"Everyone should be lucky enough to have Dr. Lucy McBride as their physician. But since everyone can't, the next best thing is to read her book. Hugely informative, empathetic, clear, and above all wise, Beyond the Prescription will equip you for a healthier and happier life. And buy an extra copy for your doctor—who may benefit from its wisdom even more than you will!” —Scott Stossel, National Editor, The Atlantic, and author of My Age of Anxiety 

"Beyond the Prescription is a welcome antidote to a healthcare landscape split between futuristic technology and natural remedies. Dr. McBride makes the case — convincingly and warmly — that 21st-century medicine works best when rigorous evidence meets personalized, relationship-centered care." —Adam Cifu, MD, Professor of Medicine at the University of Chicago, and cofounder and editor of Sensible Medicine

"Dr. Lucy McBride combines wisdom and empathy in ways that are all too rare in medicine. Beyond the Prescription is the practical, never preachy book that thoughtful patients – and their doctors – have been waiting for. Highly recommended." —Robert Wachter, MD, Professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at UCSF and bestselling author of A Giant Leap: How AI is Transforming Healthcare and What That Means for Our Future

"A must-read book for anyone who has ever felt confused or lost in today’s healthcare system—which I am pretty sure is everyone! This book empowers you with clear information, practical skills, and...


Available Editions

EDITION Other Format
ISBN 9781668024386
PRICE $29.00 (USD)
PAGES 320

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