Medical Memoirs

Zack McDermott, a 26-year-old Brooklyn public defender, woke up one morning convinced he was being filmed, Truman Show-style, as part of an audition for a TV pilot. This was it - his big dreams were finally coming true. Every passerby was an actor; every car would magically stop for him; everything he saw was a cue from "The Producer" to help inspire the performance of a lifetime. After a manic spree around Manhattan, Zack, who is bipolar, was arrested on a subway platform and admitted to Bellevue Hospital.

For thirty years, Rod Nordland shadowed death. As one of his generation's preeminent war correspondents, he reported in over 150 countries, many of which were in violent upheaval, and was no stranger to witnessing tragedy. But in summer 2019, during the height of India’s erratic monsoon season, Nordland was suddenly faced with a tragedy of his own: he collapsed in the middle of a morning jog, was rushed to the hospital, and diagnosed with a fatal brain tumor.

This book is rocking communities nationwide, especially the ALS community. Never before has anyone gone into such great detail about what you need to survive and overcome a terminal illness. From how to boost your will to live, to the weapons you need, Elizabeth covers all the bases with her fun style of wit and humor. Loaded with biblical references, this book is a wonderful evangelical tool. This book will either help you to fight for your own life or learn to appreciate the healthy life you already have!

On the eighth of February, Dr Dominic Pimenta encountered his first suspected case of coronavirus. Within a week, he began wearing a mask on the tube and within a month, he was moved over to the Intensive Care Unit to help fight the virus. Duty of Care is the first book to tell the full story of the COVID-19 pandemic from someone on the front line, working in one of the NHS's hardest hit areas.

These are the extraordinary realities of the NHS front line. From the historic junior doctor strikes to the 'humanitarian crisis' declared by the Red Cross, the overstretched health service is on the precipice. This is a powerful polemic on its systematic degradation and a letter of optimism to that same health service and those who support it. It captures with tenderness a new doctor's experiences of an NHS at breaking point.

LiveReal recounts a family's journey through their daughter's liver transplant. It is a story of faith and miracles, following a life-threatening diagnosis of Biliary Atresia. This story provides a candid portrait of the fears, struggles, and hard decisions that her loving parents had to face. From a Kasai surgery to the prospect of a second transplant, the family experienced the beauty and heartache of life events.

In 2002, at age 28, David MacLean woke up in a foreign land with his memory wiped clean. No money. No passport. No identity. Taken to a mental hospital by the police, MacLean then started to hallucinate so severely he had to be tied down. Soon he could remember song lyrics and scenes from television shows but not his family, his friends, or the woman he loved. All of these symptoms, it turned out, were the result of the commonly prescribed malarial medication he was taking. Upon hisreturn to the States, he struggled to piece together the fragments of his former life in a harrowing, absurd, and unforgettable journey back to himself.

Burning the Days captures a singular life, beginning with a Manhattan boyhood and then, satisfying his father's wishes, graduation from West Point, followed by service in the Air Force as a pilot. In some of the most evocative pages ever written about flying, Salter describes the exhilaration and terror of combat as a fighter pilot in the Korean War, scenes that are balanced by haunting pages of love and a young man's passion for women.

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo shares the inspiring story of how he came to be who he is. After experiencing abuse as a child, Dr. Ladapo was incapable of connecting emotionally with other people. He was dissociated from virtually everything in his life and numbly powered through college, medical school, and residency to become a doctor and university professor. It wasn’t until he fell in love with his wife that he was forced to come face-to-face with the enormous emotional and spiritual disruption caused by his deeply buried trauma.

A hopeful look at coping with the ravages of serious chronic illness by an accomplished journalist, a contributing columnist for the New York Times, and former senior producer of the CBS Evening News.

A Silent Spring for the human body, this wide-ranging, genre-crossing literary mystery interweaves the author’s quest to understand the source of her own condition with her telling of the story of the chronically ill 19th-century diarist Alice James—ultimately uncovering the many hidden health hazards of life in America.

Deeply touching and uplifting, What You See When You Can't See offers a way of looking at the world through different eyes and a road map to finding bliss in the simplest of things. Zena was born with Marfan Syndrome, a connective tissue disorder leaving her nearly completely blind, yet she kept this condition hidden from the world for four decades - until she met Munch. A guide dog with a huge personality, Munch made Zena's invisible disability suddenly plain for all the world to see. This book shares the story of Zena's journey with Munch....

Christine Bryden was a top civil servant and single mother of three children when she was diagnosed with dementia at the age of 46. Since then she has gone on to challenge almost every stereotype of people with dementia. This is a vivid account of the author's experiences of living with dementia, exploring the effects of memory problems, loss of independence, difficulties in communication and the exhaustion of coping with simple tasks. She describes how, with the support of her husband, Paul, she continues to lead an active life and explains how professionals and carers can help.

Erin Soto was living the life of the average overly committed mom and wife, managing her kids' schedules and myriad household duties while struggling to find time for herself. Her world came to a crashing halt when the mother of four was delivered a shocking diagnosis at age 37: stage three colon cancer. The Mother of All Fights is an uncensored glimpse into the often harrowing and sometimes shocking twists and turns of life encountered on Erin's journey toward healing her mind, body, and soul.

As medical director of the famed Preventive Medicine Research Institute, Lee Lipsenthal helped thousands of patients struggling with disease to overcome their fears of pain and death, and to embrace a more joyful way of living. In his own life, happily married and the proud father of two remarkable children, Lee was similarly committed to living his life fully and gratefully each day. The power of those beliefs was tested in July 2009, when Lee was diagnosed with esophageal cancer.

Twenty-five years ago, my doctors had no cure for my cancer. So I went on a quest to find my own treatment. This is my story....

Sixteen years ago, Juli Boit, a 25-year-old nurse practitioner, moved from Los Angeles to a small village in Kenya to be a part of an HIV program. In 2009, she founded a hospice called Kimbilio where men, women, and children come either to heal or to be loved until they die. On an ordinary Friday afternoon in 2016, a three-pound baby boy, Ryan, wrapped in pink was brought to Kimbilio. He had been born prematurely earlier that week. His mom passed away while giving birth, and neighbors miraculously kept Ryan alive on water alone for five days until they brought him to the hospice.

Third year of medical school is the greatest test in a doctor’s life, a year of rotating throughout specialties, teams, hospitals, and lives. It leaves an indelible mark on every physician, but the story is often untold…until now. Told through gonzo-style, bare-it-all journaling, Love, Sanity, or Medical School takes you on a tour of third year with Dr. Stephanie Benjamin, a 9/11 and Katrina-surviving, former Junior Olympic fencer with a tenacious spirit and keen humor.

Almost 11,700 people are diagnosed each year with a primary brain tumor, including 500 children and young people – that's 32 people every day. There are more than 120 different types. This book is one family's touching account of living with a brain tumor spanning over a decade.

After 28 days on a respirator, hanging in the balance of life and death at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Queens, Gary Mizel was well enough to be sent into a rehabilitation center to regain the strength to hold up his head and walk again. A month later, Mizel was released to his only family member, his sister Vicki, and returned to his home in Astoria. This miraculous story of recovery is being published in Vicki Mizel’s newest book, A Sister’s Love–How Family Bonds Can Save a Life.