Rural Health Book Club
Waco AHEC is proud to invite you to our book club. We will be discussing issues in the healthcare field through reading accessible texts, and then discussing the materials at our meeting on the last Wednesday of every month. Reading the text is not mandatory for attendance.
AHEC Scholars can earn up to two didactic hours each month by participating in RHBC. One can be earned by reading the text and completing the linked Google form for the month. The second can be earned by attending the discussion session.
How does it work?
Each month we will read a book concerning rural health. Scholars will have the opportunity to answer questions about the text in order to earn credit for reading the book, and then an additional hour for attending the meeting. Community members can register on Microsoft Teams without taking the quiz.
The book club meeting itself is held on at 12:00 PM CST on the last Wednesday of the month. Attendees are encouraged to discuss their experience with the book, as well as any connections they’ve found in their own practice.
Healthcare professionals and students do not frequently have space to discuss the social, political, and intersectional issues they may see every day. We’re here to provide a safe, accessible space to change that.
"Everything is Tuberculosis" by John Green
Tuberculosis has been entwined with humanity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it.
In 2019, John Green met Henry, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone while traveling with Partners in Health. John became fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal and dynamic advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, treatable infectious disease to also be the deadliest, killing 1.5 million people every year.
In Everything is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.
July 30th, 2025, 12:00 PM CST
“The Anxious Generation” by Jonathan Haidt
In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt lays out the facts about the epidemic of teen mental illness that hit many countries at the same time. He then investigates the nature of childhood, including why children need play and independent exploration to mature into competent, thriving adults. Haidt shows how the “play-based childhood” began to decline in the 1980s, and how it was finally wiped out by the arrival of the “phone-based childhood” in the early 2010s. He presents more than a dozen mechanisms by which this “great rewiring of childhood” has interfered with children’s social and neurological development, covering everything from sleep deprivation to attention fragmentation, addiction, loneliness, social contagion, social comparison, and perfectionism. He explains why social media damages girls more than boys and why boys have been withdrawing from the real world into the virtual world, with disastrous consequences for themselves, their families, and their societies.
February 26th, 2025, 12:00 PM CST
“The Cancer Factory” by Jim Morris
Sometimes, cancer runs in the family. Other times, cancer runs in the factory. At Goodyear’s chemical plant in Niagara Falls, New York, the workers “all know what happens when you start peeing blood,” according to Harry Weist, a retiree with recurrent bladder cancer who was interviewed by Jim Morris for The Cancer Factory. The book’s title portends the growth of the bladder cancer cluster that came to afflict at least 78 workers—a result of the factory’s hands-on work with ortho-toluidine. The chemical, now established to be a carcinogen, has been used by Goodyear as an ingredient in synthetic rubber tires since 1957. Don’t let the 20th century date mislead you—the chemical is nowhere near concluded history.
March 26st, 2025, 12:00 PM CST
FAQs
-
The RHBC is held on the last Wednesday of every month, at 12:00 PM CST.
-
No! Both Scholars and community members are welcome to attend to participate in the discussion, regardless of if they’ve read the book or not.
Scholars will earn one didactic hour for attending the session, regardless of if they’ve read the book.
-
No! Scholars may earn one didactic hour through reading the book and answering the quiz questions linked underneath each month’s book.
-
Most books are available at your local library, or through inter-library loan. Audio book copies can also be accessed through Libby or cloudLibrary. If you are in the Waco area, physical copies are available on a first come, first served basis.
Scholars who need a copy can contact caelie.morris@txaheceast.org or their local center for an audio or ebook copy.
-
On top of building community and sharing knowledge, book club attendees who attend 3 meetings in a semester will earn a Starbucks gift card. Be there or be square!
-
Please reach out to Morris at caelie.morris@txaheceast.org
They are happy to help with any additional accommodations or questions.