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Questioning Protocol: How to navigate the healthcare system with confidence
Questioning Protocol is an intimate portrait of how one mom navigates the health care maze when her teenage son's Crohn's Disease brings everyday life to a screeching halt. It is a healthcare solutions book from a mom's perspective. Randi Redmond Oster shares the tips, tools, and tricks from her corporate experience, engineering skills, and compassion for her son, for navigating the broken healthcare system. * Learn how she maintains control when her healthcare crisis seems overwhelming. * Discover how she creates a high-performing healthcare team focused on her son. * Understand how she manipulates the hierarchy of the healthcare system to help improve her son's care. * See how she finds ways to feel grateful, even when her world seems upside down.
286 pages, Paperback
First published May 12, 2014
2 people are currently reading
19 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 25, 2026
Questioning Protocol by Randi Redmond Oster is a thoughtful, practical, and inspiring guide for navigating complex healthcare challenges through humor, humility, and strategic thinking. Drawing on her corporate experience and engineering background, Oster provides readers with actionable strategies for managing a healthcare crisis while maintaining emotional resilience.
The book’s strength lies in its combination of personal narrative and practical advice. Oster demonstrates how to assemble and manage an effective healthcare team, navigate institutional hierarchies, and advocate for loved ones with confidence and clarity. Her techniques are accessible and empowering, allowing readers to feel informed, capable, and supported even in high-stress situations.
Oster’s compassionate approach sets this book apart. She emphasizes gratitude, problem-solving, and proactive engagement, showing how a parent’s insight, patience, and humor can make a meaningful difference in healthcare outcomes. For readers facing medical challenges themselves or supporting family members, Questioning Protocol is both a guidebook and a source of encouragement.
The book’s strength lies in its combination of personal narrative and practical advice. Oster demonstrates how to assemble and manage an effective healthcare team, navigate institutional hierarchies, and advocate for loved ones with confidence and clarity. Her techniques are accessible and empowering, allowing readers to feel informed, capable, and supported even in high-stress situations.
Oster’s compassionate approach sets this book apart. She emphasizes gratitude, problem-solving, and proactive engagement, showing how a parent’s insight, patience, and humor can make a meaningful difference in healthcare outcomes. For readers facing medical challenges themselves or supporting family members, Questioning Protocol is both a guidebook and a source of encouragement.
May 15, 2014
Full disclosure: I took a writing class with Randi - we were both students at the time. This is an honest review. I give 5 stars to book I consider best in their class/genre. This is one of them.
Randi Redmond Oster started with a problem and turned it into a book to help others deal with the problems she had. The problem was that her teenage son was repeatedly hospitalized for a misdiagnosed disease, and Randi had no idea how to challenge the medical profession in order the get the best care for her son. A former GE engineer with an MBA, Randi decided to apply some of her problem-solving talents together with her motivational skills, with amazing results. This is the book she wrote about her experiences. It’s very readable, with plenty of first hand stories, and also provides a step by step guide as to how to have this success if confronted with a large medical bureaucracy. and the guidelines she offers for getting the best out of a medical team are useful in any situation. I learned a lot. :)
Randi Redmond Oster started with a problem and turned it into a book to help others deal with the problems she had. The problem was that her teenage son was repeatedly hospitalized for a misdiagnosed disease, and Randi had no idea how to challenge the medical profession in order the get the best care for her son. A former GE engineer with an MBA, Randi decided to apply some of her problem-solving talents together with her motivational skills, with amazing results. This is the book she wrote about her experiences. It’s very readable, with plenty of first hand stories, and also provides a step by step guide as to how to have this success if confronted with a large medical bureaucracy. and the guidelines she offers for getting the best out of a medical team are useful in any situation. I learned a lot. :)
October 9, 2014
Questioning Protocol is the work of a courageous woman about her phenomenally resilient son in his struggle with Crohn's disease. It is the story of the health care crisis they face, a crisis which exists within the hospital to which Gary is admitted for surgery. This particular hospital is a place where doctor-patient communication is minimal, causing this mother of a very sick child undue anxiety and providing questionable outcomes.
Oster, a resident of Connecticut, is forced to use strategies she learned from her corporate background to navigate her dealings with doctors and nurses, all the while struggling to stem her extreme fear for her child's welfare. The pace of this story is rapid; the narrative is suspenseful, even though the reader knows the boy did get through the ordeal. In addition to telling a good story, the author provides advice to readers on how to maneuver within a hospital's domain where protocol is everything and patients' welfare seems secondary.
Oster, a resident of Connecticut, is forced to use strategies she learned from her corporate background to navigate her dealings with doctors and nurses, all the while struggling to stem her extreme fear for her child's welfare. The pace of this story is rapid; the narrative is suspenseful, even though the reader knows the boy did get through the ordeal. In addition to telling a good story, the author provides advice to readers on how to maneuver within a hospital's domain where protocol is everything and patients' welfare seems secondary.
May 25, 2014
What an absolute brilliant book this one is, when her son is diagnosed with crohns disease she has to navigate her way through a maze of alternative, taking control of the reins whilst her son goes through various medical processes to ease his pain, at the same time keeping strong for both him and the rest of the family and at the same time juggle her work load. Its a beautiful story, poignant, heart wrenching and anyone who has to go down this road with their child should read it. its about irrespective of what diagnoses they give you ask question, do your own research and understand how the health system works and most of all its about being a Mum. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED - A MUST READ
October 2, 2015
Great perspective from a smart mom who didn't just sit back and let doctors treat her son - she asked questions, she probed deeper and together with her son she helped design a new form of treatment for him that has allowed him to thrive. Great read -
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews