After two grueling--okay, tough, not grueling-- years, I've wrapped up my Masters in Health Communications at Boston University.     Next Saturday I "walk," along with the kids 30+ years younger than me.  Well, as one says, better late than never.

I've come to the conclusion that there are few, if any, really great textbooks on public relations, marketing and health care; primarily because these fields are so dynamic that whatever is written is soon dated.  Further, not many textbook writers are ballsy enough to be really provocative, which to me is the hallmark of a great educator.

That said, over the course of the program I did read some really excellent books and articles as part of my course work.  Few were textbooks, per se.   Here's my list of what was really great:

Best Readings from Boston University MS in Health Communications

Communications, PR and Marketing

Anderson, C. (2006). The long tail: Why the future of business is selling less of more. New York: Hyperion.

Bernays, E. (1923). Crystalizing public opinion. Brooklyn, NY: IG Publishing.

Haskett, J. I., Jones, T. O., Loveman, G. W., Sasser, W. E., & Schlesinger, L. A. (1994). Putting the service-profit chain to work. Harvard Business Review, (March-April), 164-174.

Hicks, N. J., & Nicols, C. (2012). Health industry communication: New media, new methods, new message. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Levy, S. (2011). In the plex: How Google thinks, works, and shapes our lives. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Linden, T. (2011). The New York Times reader: Health and medicine. Washington, D.C.: CQ Press.

Making health communication programs work: A planner's guide. (1989). [Bethesda, Md.]: U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, National Institutes of Health, Office of Cancer Communications, National Cancer Institute.

Ogilvy, D. (1983). Ogilvy on advertising. New York: Crown.

Ries, A., & Ries, L. (2002). The fall of advertising and the rise of PR. New York: HarperBusiness.

Scott, D. M. (2011). The new rules of marketing & PR: How to use social media, online video, mobile applications, blogs, news releases, & viral marketing to reach buyers directly. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Public Health Policy

Altman, S. H., & Shactman, D. (2011). Power, politics, and universal health care: The inside story of a century-long battle. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books.

Bayer, M., Merritt, D., & Galea, S. (2012). Salt and Public Health: Contested Science and the Challenge of Evidence-Based Decision Making. Health Affairs, 31(12), 2738-2746.

Gawande, A. (2012, August 13). Big Med. Can Hospital Chains Improve the Medical Industry? : The New Yorker. Retrieved January 13, 2013, from http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/08/13/120813fa_fact_gawande?printable=true

Goldhill, D. (2009, September). How American Health Care Killed My Father. The Atlantic. Retrieved January 19, 2013, from http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/09/how-american-health-care-killed-my-father/307617/

Mnookin, S. (2011). The panic virus: A true story of medicine, science, and fear. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Rettig, R. A. (2007). False hope: Bone marrow transplantation for breast cancer. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Starr, P. (1982). The social transformation of American medicine. New York: Basic Books.

Health Care

Bohmer, R., & Campbell, B. (2002). A Father's Love: Novazyme Pharmaceuticals. Harvard Business Review, October 22.

Groopman, J. E. (2004). The anatomy of hope: How people prevail in the face of illness. New York: Random House.

Hamermesh, R. G., & Gordon, R. (2010). Amylin Pharmaceuticals: Diabetes and Beyond. Harvard Business Review, March 1.

Mukherjee, S. (2010). The emperor of all maladies: A biography of cancer. New York: Scribner.

Pence, G. E. (2011). Medical ethics: Accounts of ground-breaking cases. New York, NY: McGraw Hill.

Topol, E. J. (2012). The creative destruction of medicine: How the digital revolution will create better health care. New York: Basic Books.

#   #   #