Medical Biography

In this absorbing narrative, Dr. Chris Honey, an accomplished neurosurgeon at Vancouver General Hospital, weaves his personal journey together with case studies that reflect the thrill of scientific discovery and the limitations of medicine. Operating on a terminally ill child amid an Ebola outbreak in Liberia, he questions his preconceptions about what it means to "win" against a disease. Reflecting on his own path into neurosurgery, he brings to life a relatively new, high stakes field of medicine—one that historically demanded emotional detachment and often attracts extreme personalities

The struggle to perform well is universal: each one of us faces fatigue, limited resources, and imperfect abilities in whatever we do. But nowhere is this drive to do better more important than in medicine, where lives are on the line with every decision. In this book, Atul Gawande explores how doctors strive to close the gap between best intentions and best performance in the face of obstacles that sometimes seem insurmountable.

Delia Ephron had struggled through several years of heartbreak. She’d lost her sister, Nora, and then her husband, Jerry, both to cancer. Several months after Jerry’s death, she decided to make one small change in her life - she shut down his landline, which crashed her internet. She ended up in Verizon hell.

A riveting exploration of the most difficult and important part of what doctors do, by Yale School of Medicine physician Dr. Lisa Sanders, author of the monthly New York Times Magazine column "Diagnosis", the inspiration for the hit Fox TV series House, M.D. In Every Patient Tells a Story, Dr. Lisa Sanders takes us bedside to witness the process of solving diagnostic dilemmas, providing a firsthand account of the expertise and intuition that lead a doctor to make the right diagnosis.

A riveting and candid account of a young journalist's awakening to a life of chronic illness, weaving together her personal story with reporting to shed light on how Americans live with long-term diagnoses today.

How could a 66-year-old grandmother, who gave her life to helping people with their health, become the subject of a malicious smear campaign which resulted in her being classified as a serious threat to public health in Australia? This book exposes the hypocrisy of the organization Friends of Science in Medicine who act as 'friends of science', but are in reality pharmaceutical apologists and the 'Enemies of Truth in Medical Science'. Barbara became collateral damage in the war on any dissent from mainstream medical dogma.

In the early 1900s, women were dying in large numbers from treatable diseases because they avoided receiving medical care. Examinations performed by male doctors were often demeaning and even painful. In addition, women faced stigma from illness—a diagnosis could greatly limit their ability to find husbands, jobs or be received in polite society. Motivated by personal loss and frustration over inadequate medical care, Elizabeth Blackwell, Lizzie Garret Anderson and Sophie Jex-Blake fought for a woman's place in the male-dominated medical field.

Decorated Navy SEAL Lieutenant Jason Redman served his country courageously and with distinction in Colombia, Peru, Afghanistan, and Iraq, where he commanded mobility and assault forces. But his journey was not without its supreme challenges. He was critically wounded in 2007 when he was struck by machine-gun fire at point blank range. During his intense recovery period, Redman posted a sign on his door, warning all who entered not to "feel sorry for [his] wounds."

A neuroscientist transforms the way we think about our brains, our health, and our personal happiness in this clear, informative, and inspiring guide - a blend of personal memoir, science narrative, and immediately useful takeaways that bring the human brain into focus as never before, revealing the powerful connection between exercise, learning, memory, and cognitive abilities.

Mary Pipher's groundbreaking investigation of America's "girl-poisoning culture," Reviving Ophelia, has sold nearly two million copies and established its author as one of the nation's foremost authorities on family issues. In Letters to a Young Therapist, Dr. Pipher shares what she has learned in 30 years as a therapist, helping warring families, alienated adolescents, and harried professionals restore peace and beauty to their lives. Letters to a Young Therapist gives voice to her practice with an exhilarating mix of storytelling and sharp-eyed observation.

In The Butchering Art, the historian Lindsey Fitzharris reveals the shocking world of 19th-century surgery on the eve of profound transformation. She conjures up early operating theaters - no place for the squeamish - and surgeons, working before anesthesia, who were lauded for their speed and brute strength. They were baffled by the persistent infections that kept mortality rates stubbornly high. A young, melancholy Quaker surgeon named Joseph Lister would solve the deadly riddle and change the course of history.

Trente infirmières et infirmiers de tous les horizons racontent, à tour de rôle, la relation avec un patient la plus marquante de leur carrière. Ces professionnels dévoués nous donnent accès aux moments parfois bouleversants qui ponctuent leur quotidien dans les centres hospitaliers, les cliniques, les dispensaires du domaine communautaire et les pénitenciers.

With compassion and candor, leading neurosurgeon Henry Marsh reveals the fierce joy of operating, the profoundly moving triumphs, the harrowing disasters, the haunting regrets, and the moments of black humor that characterize a brain surgeon's life. If you believe that brain surgery is a precise and exquisite craft, practiced by calm and detached surgeons, this gripping, brutally honest account will make you think again.

An exquisite memoir about how to live - and love - every day with "death in the room", from poet Nina Riggs, mother of two young sons and the direct descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson, in the tradition of When Breath Becomes Air.

One of the most influential living psychologists looks at the history of his life and discipline, and paints a much brighter future for everyone. When Martin E. P. Seligman first encountered psychology in the 1960s, the field was devoted to eliminating misery: it was the science of how past trauma creates present symptoms. Today, thanks in large part to Seligman's Positive Psychology movement, it is ever more focused not on what cripples life, but on what makes life worth living - with profound consequences for our mental health.

The Headache Godfather traces the life of Seymour Diamond, MD, who was born in 1925, the son of Jewish immigrants from Ukraine and Slovakia, in Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Diamond revolutionized the practice of headache as a medical specialty when he opened the United States' first private headache practice, the Diamond Headache Clinic, in 1974. It quickly became a headache haven for sufferers from around the world.

The perfect gift for fans of All Creatures Great and Small, this is a charming collection of classic stories from James Herriot’s much-loved books with insights into his life and work from his children Rosie and Jim. With astute observations and boundless humour, country vet Herriot captures the spirit of the Yorkshire Dales and of rural communities on the cusp of change, before tractors and machines had taken over and modern medicines and antibiotics transformed veterinary work.

Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American dream. After World War II, Don's work with the Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their 12 children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. In those years, there was an established script for a family like the Galvins—aspiration, hard work, upward mobility, domestic harmony. But behind the scenes was a different story: psychological breakdown, sudden shocking violence, hidden abuse. By the mid-1970s, six of the 10 Galvin boys, one after another, were diagnosed as schizophrenic.

In My Stroke of Insight, Taylor shares her unique perspective on the brain and its capacity for recovery, and the sense of omniscient understanding she gained from this unusual and inspiring voyage out of the abyss of a wounded brain. It would take eight years for Taylor to heal completely. Because of her knowledge of how the brain works, her respect for the cells composing her human form, and most of all an amazing mother, Taylor completely repaired her mind and recalibrated her understanding of the world.

In the spirit of Oliver Sacks Awakenings and the TV series House, Dr. Eric Manheimer's Twelve Patients is a memoir from the medical director of Bellevue Hospital that uses the plights of 12 very different patients - from dignitaries at the nearby UN, to supermax prisoners from Riker's Island, to illegal immigrants, and Wall Street tycoons - to illustrate larger societal issues.