What’s in it
Tap a tag: ❤ = this matters to me · tap again ✕ = don’t care · again to reset. The list below updates each time.
24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorThe Real Doctor Will See You Shortly: A Physician's First Year
Matt McCarthy · 336 pages
"This funny, candid memoir about the author's intern year at a New York hospital provides a scorchingly frank look at how doctors are made, taking readers into the critical care unit to see one burgeoning physician's journey from ineptitude to competence. After his professional baseball career failed to launch, Matt McCarthy went to Harvard Medical School and on to a coveted residency slot in New
Intern: A Doctor's Initiation
Sandeep Jauhar · 320 pages
Intern is Dr. Sandeep Jauhar's story of his days and nights in residency at a busy hospital in New York City, a trial that led him to question his every assumption about medical care today. Residency―and especially its first year, the internship―is legendary for its brutality, and Jauhar's experience was even more harrowing than most. He switched from physics to medicine in order to follow a mo
Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness
Susannah Cahalan · 288 pages
The book narrates Cahalan's issues with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis and the process by which she was diagnosed with this form of encephalitis. She wakes up in a hospital with no memory of the events of the previous month, during which time she would have violent episodes and delusions. Her eventual diagnosis is made more difficult by various physicians misdiagnosing her with several theories s
Weekends at Bellevue: Nine Years on the Night Shift at the Psych E.R.
Julie Holland · 310 pages
Documents a psychiatrist's employment at New York City's Bellevue Hospital while sharing the life lessons she learned from her patients and colleagues, describing some of the more remarkable cases of her career and their influences on her family life.
This Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor
Adam Kay · 278 pages
As soon as Adam Kay set foot on a hospital ward for the first time, he realized there's quite a lot they don't teach you at medical school ... His diaries from the NHS front line - scribbled in secret after long nights, endless days and missed weekends - are hilarious, horrifying and heartbreaking by turns. This Is Going to Hurt is everything you wanted to know about being a junior doctor, and mor
Just Here Trying to Save a Few Lives: Tales of Life and Death from the ER
Pamela Grim · 320 pages
Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery
Henry Marsh · 278 pages
In neurosurgery, more than in any other branch of medicine, the doctor's oath to "do no harm" holds a bitter irony. Operations on the brain carry grave risks. Every day, leading neurosurgeon Henry Marsh must make agonizing decisions, often in the face of great urgency and uncertainty. If you believe that brain surgery is a precise and exquisite craft, practiced by calm and detached doctors, thi
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures
Anne Fadiman · 341 pages
When three-month-old Lia Lee arrived at the county hospital emergency room in Merced, California, a chain of events was set in motion from which neither she nor her parents nor her doctors would ever recover. Lia's parents, Foua and Nao Kao, were part of a large Hmong community in Merced, refugees from the CIA-run "Quiet War" in Laos. Parents and doctors both wanted the best for Lia, but their
On Call: A Doctor's Days and Nights in Residency
Emily R. Transue · 249 pages
The story of a medical resident's initiation into her first three years as a doctor follows her internship in a Seattle hospital, where she experiences first-hand the triumphs and challenges of rescuing and losing patients.
When Breath Becomes Air
Paul Kalanithi · 256 pages
At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve me
Run, Don't Walk: The Curious and Chaotic Life of a Physical Therapist Inside Walter Reed Army Medical Center
Adele Levine · 348 pages
"M*A*S*H meets Scrubs in a sharply observant, absurdly funny, inspiring, and totally unique debut memoir from a physical therapist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the birthplace of physical therapy and the world leader in prosthetic rehabilitation for injured war veterans"--
When the Air Hits Your Brain: Tales of Neurosurgery
Frank T. Vertosick Jr. · 272 pages
Neurosurgery is an arrogant and yet intensely humbling occupation. Physicists might distill Creation into a few differential equations and biologists see life's wonders in a DNA helix. Only the neurosurgeon actually touches the fleshy incarnation of Nature's greatest mystery - the human brain - and runs the risks that come with it. The true mystery of neurosurgery lies in the lifelines of surgeon
Making Rounds with Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat
David Dosa · 256 pages
When Oscar arrived at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Rhode Island, he was a cute little cat with attitude. He loved to stretch out in a puddle of sunlight and chase his tail until he was dizzy. Occasionally he consented to a scratch behind the ears, but only when it suited him. In other words, he was a typical cat. Or so it seemed. It wasn't long before Oscar had created som
In the Midst of Life
Jennifer Worth · 427 pages
Just as Jennifer was present at the beginning of life in her midwife books, here she documents her experiences as a nurse and ward sister treating patients who were nearing the end of their lives. Interpersed with these stories from Jennifer's post-midwife career are the histories of her patients, discussions on the circumstances in which we die, and a stripping-back of the myths and taboos surrou
Tell Me Where It Hurts: A Day of Humor, Healing, and Hope in My Life as an Animal Surgeon
Nick Trout · 287 pages
It's 2:47 a.m. when Dr. Nick Trout takes the phone call that starts another hectic day at the Angell Animal Medical Center. Sage, a ten-year old German shepherd, will die without emergency surgery for a serious stomach condition. Over the next twenty-four hours Dr. Trout fights for Sage's life, battles disease in the operating room, unravels tricky diagnoses, reassures frantic pet parents, and ref
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Jean-Dominique Bauby · 141 pages
The author, former editor of French Elle magazine, describes the rare stroke to the brain stem that left his mind intact in a nearly totally paralyzed body.
The Tennis Partner
Abraham Verghese · 345 pages
Verghese's marriage is unraveling. He relocates to El Paso, Texas, hoping to make a fresh start as a staff member at the county hospital. He meets David, a medical student and former tennis pro, and their matches reawaken Verghese's passion for the game. As David's life takes some disturbing turns, Verghese finds himself forced to choose between his role as friend and that of authority figure.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
Rebecca Skloot · 381 pages
A Not Entirely Benign Procedure: Four Years as a Medical Student
Perri Klass · 279 pages
Healing Hearts: A Memoir of a Female Heart Surgeon
Kathy Magliato · 261 pages
An inspiring, surprising, and deeply informative memoir of the high-stakes life of a female heart surgeon.
In the Sanctuary of Outcasts
Neil W. White III · 316 pages
Daddy is going to camp. That's what I told my children. A child psychologist suggested it. “Words like prison and jail conjure up dangerous images for children,” she explained. But it wasn't camp...Neil White, a journalist and magazine publisher, wanted the best for those he loved—nice cars, beautiful homes, luxurious clothes. He loaned money to family and friends, gave generously to his church, a
Sometimes Amazing Things Happen: Heartbreak and Hope on the Bellevue Hospital Psychiatric Prison Ward
Elizabeth Ford · 272 pages
Welcome to the Bellevue Hospital Psychiatric Prison Ward, a maximum-security hospital and inpatient psychiatric unit for the inmates of the New York City jail system, with its hub on Rikers Island. It is a world of heartbreak, violence, and pain, where severely ill men are often lost in a tangle of courts, jails, and bureaucracy. It is also a place of challenges, redemption, and surprising joy, wh
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
Atul Gawande · 283 pages
From surgeon and bestselling author Atul Gawande, a book that has the potential to change medicine—and lives. Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming the dangers of childbirth, injury, and disease from harrowing to manageable. But when it comes to the inescapable realities of aging and death, what medicine can do often runs counter to what it should. Through eye-opening research