Medical Biography

True stories are more bizarre than any fiction, and Dr. Gary Small knows this best. After 30 distinguished years of psychiatry and groundbreaking research on the human brain, Dr. Small has seen it all - now he is ready to open his office doors for the first time and tell all about the most mysterious, intriguing, and bizarre patients of his career. The Naked Lady Who Stood on Her Head is a spellbinding record of the doctor's most bewildering cases.

Je venais de passer douze ans à être en colère, à penser la mort comme une ennemie qui ne pouvait causer que de la peine, de la noirceur et du vide. Et soudain, je découvre qu'elle est aussi une délivrance, qu'elle peut être douce et libératrice. Maman, tu vas peut-être me prendre pour une folle, mais mes mots sont trop faibles pour décrire ce que je viens de vivre. C'est un cadeau précieux que je n'oublierai jamais. Désormais, il est clair dans mon esprit que je veux travailler avec les morts pour apaiser les vivants.

At twenty-six, Gaby felt like her life was just beginning. Newly married and pregnant with her first child, she was on top of the world. But that joy was shattered when a routine blood test led to a diagnosis of AML Leukemia—and the treatment she needed could harm her baby or save them both.

In Re-Vision, Daniel Drumwright shares his extraordinary story of overcoming adversity and finding hope in the darkest of times. Once a vibrant young professional with dreams of a successful career, Daniel's world was shattered when he was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. Facing the loss of his vision and battling a grueling recovery, he was forced to confront his deepest fears and redefine his identity.

Cómo ninguna otra personalidad del ámbito científico en la Argentina, el cirujano René Gerónimo Favaloro (1923-2000) logró trascender el prestigio académico para convertirse es un personaje público de altísimo perfil y un referente ético para millones de personas. Su suicidio, de un disparo al corazón, fue la imagen más patente de un fracaso colectivo: el de un país incapaz de aprovechar a sus hombres más brillantes.

New Year's Eve 2020 was supposed to be a turning point to better days for twenty-nine-year-old Katie Coleman. Instead, she found herself in the ER processing the earth-shattering news of a stage IV cancer diagnosis, one that had come after years of being assured she was "too young for cancer" and a repeated misdiagnosis of anxiety. Too Young for Cancer tells the story of Katie's journey from diagnosis with an ultra-rare cancer through treatment, recovery, and a life-altering shift in perspective.

Las esperadísimas memorias del Doctor Valentín Fuster, el médico más importante de los últimos cien años y el científico e investigador español más citado de todos los tiempos. Valentín Fuster soñaba de niño con ser tenista. Y tal vez, de haber continuado practicando con la raqueta, lo hubiera sido. Pero un incidente en el instituto y, sobre todo, un médico, Pedro Farreras Valentí, cambiaron su destino para siempre y lo llevaron a convertirse en uno de los cardiólogos más influyentes de todos los tiempos.

Heather is pale and thin, seventeen and pregnant with twins when Patricia Harman begins to care for her. Over the course of the next five seasons Patsy will see Heather through the loss of both babies and their father. She will also care for her longtime patient Nila, pregnant for the eighth time and trying to make a new life without her abusive husband. And Patsy will try to find some comfort to offer Holly, whose teenage daughter struggles with bulimia. She will help Rebba learn to find pleasure in her body and help Kaz transition into a new body.

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.

It wasn’t supposed to be this hard. If America could send a man to the moon, shouldn’t the best surgeons in the world be able to build an artificial heart? In Ticker, Texas Monthly executive editor and two time National Magazine Award winner Mimi Swartz shows just how complex and difficult it can be to replicate one of nature’s greatest creations. Part investigative journalism, part medical mystery, Ticker is a dazzling story of modern innovation, recounting 50 years of false starts, abysmal failures, and miraculous triumphs.

In this powerful, wide-ranging, and emotional story about the limits of medical knowledge, Abel discovers why she wasn't diagnosed with celiac as a child. She considers how environmental fears and Internet anecdotes lead people to avoid gluten. And she grapples with the question that confronts us all: how to live calmly, even joyfully, in the face of uncertainty.

From New York Times best-selling author and blogger Heather B. Armstrong comes an honest and irreverent memoir - reminiscent of the New York Times best-seller Brain on Fire - about her experience as one of only a few people to participate in an experimental treatment for depression involving 10 rounds of a chemically induced coma approximating brain death.

Galen of Pergamum (A.D. 129-ca. 216) began his remarkable career tending to wounded gladiators in provincial Asia Minor. Later in life he achieved great distinction as one of a small circle of court physicians to the family of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, at the very heart of Roman society. Susan Mattern's The Prince of Medicine offers the first authoritative biography in English of this brilliant, audacious, and profoundly influential figure.

Patti Davis, the daughter of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, writes about losing her father to Alzheimer's disease, saying goodbye in stages, and watching the progression of a disease that steals what is most precious: a person's memory. Past and present come together in this illuminating portrait of grief, of a man, a disease, and a girl and her father.

In the quarter century that Victoria Sweet has been a doctor, "health care" has replaced medicine, "providers" (vastly outnumbered by administrators) look at their laptops more than at their patients, and the ruthless pursuit of efficiency has vanquished not only trust and intimacy but also, often, the effectiveness of treatment. Victoria Sweet knows that there is an alternative way, because she has lived and practiced it. In her new book, she reflects with compassion, wit, and profound insight.

"In 1960 I was given a transorbital, or 'ice pick' lobotomy. My stepmother arranged it. My father agreed to it. Dr. Walter Freeman, the father of the American lobotomy, told me he was going to do some 'tests'. It took 10 minutes and cost 200 dollars." Assisted by journalist/novelist Charles Fleming, Howard Dully recounts a family tragedy of Sophoclean proportions.

From the frontlines of modern medicine, Tell Me Where it Hurts is a fascinating insider portrait of a veterinarian, his furry patients, and the blend of old-fashioned instincts and cutting-edge technology that defines pet care in the 21st century. Dr. Trout takes the listener on a vicarious journey through 24 intimate, heartrending hours in his life.

We have lost the war on cancer. We spend $150 billion each year treating it, yet - a few innovations notwithstanding - a patient with cancer is as likely to die of it as one was 50 years ago. Most new drugs add mere months to one's life at agonizing physical and financial cost. In The First Cell, Azra Raza offers a searing account of how both medicine and our society (mis)treats cancer, how we can do better, and why we must.

When Lorna Crozier and Patrick Lane met at a poetry workshop in 1976, they had no idea that they would go on to write more than 40 books between them, balancing their careers with their devotion to each other, and to their beloved cats, for decades. Then, in January 2017, their life together changed unexpectedly when Patrick became seriously ill. Despite tests and the opinions of many specialists, doctors remained baffled. There was no diagnosis and no effective treatment plan. The illness devastated them both.

Restaurateur, magazine publisher, celebrity chef, and nationally known lifestyle maven, B. Smith is struggling at 66 with a tag she never expected to add to that string: Alzheimer's patient. She's not alone. Every 67 seconds someone newly develops it, and millions of lives are affected by its aftershocks.