What’s in it
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorBrain 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
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
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.
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
Singular Intimacies: Becoming a Doctor at Bellevue
Danielle Ofri · 251 pages
Singular Intimacies is the story of becoming a doctor by immersion at New York's Bellevue Hospital, the oldest public hospital in the country-and perhaps the most legendary. It is both the classic inner-city hospital and a unique amalgam of history, insanity, beauty, and intellect. When Danielle Ofri enters the doors of this 250-year-old institution as a tentative medical student, she is immediate
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
Blood, Sweat and Tea
Tom Reynolds · 272 pages
Is there anyone who hasnt wondered about the state of the occupant of an ambulance, screaming along with its sirens on and blue lights flashing? And have you wondered about the other people inside the ambulance? Meet Tom Reynolds, an Emergency Medical Technician who works for the London Ambulance Service in East London. He has kept a blog of his daily working life since 2003 and his award-winning
The 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
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.
Something for the Pain: Compassion and Burnout in the ER
Paul Austin · 304 pages
In this riveting memoir, an ER doctor reveals how his high-stress career of helping others led to a struggle to save himself.
Yes Sister, No Sister: My Life as a Trainee Nurse in 1950s Yorkshire
Jennifer Craig · 251 pages
Based on the author's own experiences, this is the fascinating story of one young nurse who enters training in 1952 and eventually progresses to become ward sister.
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.
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.
A Thousand Naked Strangers: A Paramedic’s Wild Ride to the Edge and Back
Kevin Hazzard · 261 pages
"A former paramedic's visceral, poignant, and mordantly funny account of a decade spent on Atlanta's mean streets saving lives and connecting with the drama and occasional beauty that lies inside catastrophe. In the aftermath of 9/11 Kevin Hazzard felt that something was missing from his life--his days were too safe, too routine. A failed salesman turned local reporter, he wanted to test himself,
Home Before Morning
Lynda Van Devanter · 336 pages
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
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
Just Here Trying to Save a Few Lives: Tales of Life and Death from the ER
Pamela Grim · 320 pages
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 Year of Magical Thinking
Joan Didion · 227 pages
[In this book, the author] explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage - and a life, in good times and bad - that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child. Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill with what seemed at first flu, then pneumonia, then complete sept