Medical Biography

The "absorbing and powerful" (Wall Street Journal) story of two pioneering suffragette doctors who shattered social expectations and transformed modern medicine during World War I. In No Man's Land, Wendy Moore illuminates this turbulent moment of global war and pandemic when women were, for the first time, allowed to operate on men. Their fortitude and brilliance serve as powerful reminders of what women can achieve against all odds.

When North Korean forces invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950, Otto Apel was a surgical resident living in Cleveland, Ohio, with his wife and three young children. A year later he was chief surgeon of the 8076th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, constantly near the front lines in Korea. Immediately upon arriving in camp, Apel performed 80 hours of surgery. His feet swelled so badly, he had to cut his boots off, and he saw more surgical cases in those three and a half days than he would have in a year back in Cleveland.

"Ein Taxi ist so teuer und ich zahle doch auch Krankenkassenbeiträge." Oder "Wenn Sie mich mitnehmen, komme ich ja schneller dran!" Solche Sätze hört Luis Teichmann oft. Er fährt seit sieben Jahren im Rettungsdienst und Bagatelleinsätze sind hier nicht die einzige Herausforderung: Nachtschichten, körperlich schwere Arbeit, gewalttätige Übergriffe und die psychische Belastung rücken seinen Job aus der Komfortzone. Da ist zum Beispiel der stadtbekannte Mann, der bis zu viermal am Tag die 112 wählt, an 365 Tagen im Jahr – und jedes einzige Mal muss ein RTW ausrücken.

There are many struggles in this difficult world that can darken our skies. It may be ongoing health issues, depression/anxiety, relationship struggles, financial calamity and so much more.

At the University of Wisconsin, Dr. Joshua Mezrich creates life from loss, transplanting organs from one body to another. In this intimate, profoundly moving work, he illuminates the extraordinary field of transplantation that enables this kind of miracle to happen every day.

Cheney flips mental illness inside out, exposing the visceral story of the struggles, stigma, relationship dilemmas, treatments, and recovery techniques she and others have encountered. Sometimes humorous, sometimes harrowing, Modern Madness is the ultimate owner's manual on mental illness, breaking this complex subject down into readily understandable concepts like instructions for use, troubleshooting, maintenance, and warranties.

Dr Dan Pronk served on over 100 combat missions in Afghanistan as a frontline special forces combat doctor, where the casualties he treated were his fellow SAS soldiers and commandos, local civilians and even the enemy. The thrill of adventure and the challenges of battlefield medicine brought out the very best in Dan; he discovered a sense of purpose in pushing his medical skills and courage to the limits. But there was a cost. In this frank memoir, Dan describes the highs and lows of his military-medical career, and the very real toll they took on his mental health and family life.

As a palliative care nurse, it is Kelly Critcher's job to look death in the eye - to save a patient while the fight can still be won and confront death with grace and kindness when it can't. In early 2020, everything changed for nurses on the NHS frontline. Working on Covid wards and the High Dependency Unit, Kelly spent the height of the coronavirus crisis at Northwick Park Hospital - perhaps the UK hospital most deeply ravaged by the illness.

Andrea Buchanan lost her mind while crossing the street one blustery March morning. The cold winter air triggered a coughing fit, and she began to choke. She was choking on a lot that day. A sick child. A pending divorce. The guilt of failing as a partner and as a mother. When the coughing finally stopped, she thought it was over. She could not have been more wrong.

The Nobel laureate Otto Warburg was widely regarded in his day as one of the most important biochemists of the 20th century, a man whose research was integral to humanity’s understanding of cancer. He was also among the most despised figures in Nazi Germany. As a Jewish homosexual living openly with his male partner, Warburg represented all that the Third Reich abhorred. Yet Hitler and his top advisors dreaded cancer, and protected Warburg in the hope that he could cure it.

At the age of 38, Danish scientist Rikke Schmidt Kjærgaard is struck down by an acute bout of bacterial meningitis. Weeks later, she wakes from a coma in intensive care to find herself “locked in,” unable to show she is conscious except by blinking her eyes. Despite a mere 5 percent chance of survival, she makes a miraculous recovery and returns to the world - painfully learning how to breathe, move, eat, and speak again, even resume her work as a scientist.

After 24 years in healthcare, one fateful evening transformed Mandi from practitioner to patient. A motor vehicle accident left her with a significant traumatic brain injury that has taken her much longer than expected to recover from. Follow along as she shares her journey back from her worst day through the first year.

Para Carmen, 2012 es un punto de inflexión. Tiene setenta y cinco años. La salud le empieza a fallar, los temblores repentinos aumentan y en una cena con amigos ocurre lo peor… Para más inri, sus problemas se multiplican cuando se sienta en el banquillo acusada de proxenetismo. Poco antes había sido desahuciada de la casa donde había vivido casi cincuenta años.

Durante su convalecencia, la doctora Sendino fue tomando notas sobre su experiencia de la enfermedad, de cara a un libro que deseaba escribir. Ante la inminencia de su muerte, le pidió a Pablo d'Ors que le ayudase a culminar esta tarea. El autor, que le atendía espiritualmente, rescata sus anotaciones y las contextualiza en una vida que no duda en calificar de ejemplar. Un testimonio sobre lo que al final de verdad importa. Un texto sin concesiones, tan escueto como directo al corazón. Un relato necesario sobre una muerte que da vida.

That Julie Yip-Williams survived infancy was a miracle. Then, at age 37, with two little girls at home, Julie was diagnosed with terminal metastatic colon cancer, and a different journey began. The Unwinding of the Miracle is the story of a vigorous life refracted through the prism of imminent death. When she was first diagnosed, Julie Yip-Williams sought clarity and guidance through the experience and, finding none, began to write her way through it - a chronicle that grew beyond her imagining.

Dr. Steven Hatch first came to Liberia in November 2013 to work at a hospital in Monrovia. Six months later, several of the physicians Dr. Hatch had mentored and served with were dead or barely clinging to life, and Ebola had become a world health emergency. Hundreds of victims perished each week; whole families were destroyed in a matter of days; so many died so quickly that the culturally taboo practice of cremation had to be instituted to dispose of the bodies.

The life of a veterinarian is challenging: keeping up with advances in medical care, making difficult decisions about people's beloved companions, and, in Dr. Doug Mader's case, navigating the social unrest in Los Angeles in the early 1990s. The Vet at Noah's Ark follows Dr. Mader and his staff over the course of a year at Noah's Ark Veterinary Hospital, an inner-city LA area veterinary hospital where Dr. Mader treats not only dogs and cats, but also emus, skunks, snakes, foxes, monkeys, and a host of other exotic animals

Backbone is a life-fulfilling message about managing chronic pain and living a life of purpose. For two decades, Karen Duffy, New York Times bestselling author, former MTV VJ, Revlon model, and actress, has managed to live an enriching life despite living in a state of constant pain. In this powerful, inspirational, funny, and important manual for surviving pain, Duffy draws on her experience as a patient advocate, trained recreational therapist, and hospice chaplain to illuminate gratifying methods people can use to cope with chronic pain.

In April 2014, Deputy Editorial Director at BuzzFeed Lara Parker opened up to the world in an article on the website: She suffers from endometriosis. And beyond that? She let the whole world know that she wasn’t having any sex, as sex was excruciatingly painful. Less than a year before, she received not only the diagnosis of endometriosis, but also a diagnosis of pelvic floor dysfunction, vulvodynia, vaginismus, and vulvar vestibulitis.

Diagnosed with a late-stage cancer after years of bungled and inadequate medical attention...and then to discover the best-practice chemotherapy is not available in your province. A true story, The Cancer Olympics is a suspenseful and poignant treatment of an unthinkable situation, an account of advocacy and survival that explores our deepest values regarding democracy, medicine, and friendship.