Medical Memoirs

In Mercies in Disguise, acclaimed New York Times reporter and best-selling author Gina Kolata tells the story of the Baxleys, an upstanding family in small-town South Carolina. Many of them were doctors, but still, they are struck down by an inscrutable illness. Finally they discover the cause of the disease after a remarkable sequence of providential events. Meanwhile science, progressing for 50 years along a parallel track, handed the Baxleys a question - not a cure but a blood test that would reveal who had the gene for the disease.

Moneyball meets medicine in this remarkable chronicle of one of the greatest scientific quests of our time - the groundbreaking program to answer the most essential question for humanity: How do we live and die? - and the visionary mastermind behind it.

I got into medical school by saying I was black. I lied. Honestly, I am about as black as my sister Mindy Kaling. Once upon a time, I was an ethically challenged, hard-partying Indian-American frat boy enjoying my third year of college. That is until I realized I didn't have the grades or test scores to get into medical school. Legitimately.

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.

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.

In order to bring its origin to light, Rebecca Skloot weaves together several narrative threads. One is primarily focused on Henrietta Lacks, the woman who, without her knowledge, became central to 20th century biomedical research. Another is the birth of modern biomedical research itself, and its roots in the American eugenics movement. Finally, there is the impact of this research, both of the Lacks Family and on society at large. Skloot divides the book into 3 parts: Life, Death, and Immortality.

It’s the business of saving lives. Miracle Medicines goes behind the scenes of the pharmaceutical industry and into the high-security laboratories to tell the stories of the men and women - chemists, physiologists, medical and clinical researchers, engineers - who have chosen to toil for years in the lab in order to transform scientific theories into new lifesaving medicines. You’ll witness the day-to-day labors, victories and defeats of the dedicated professionals who are waging a war against the diseases that still plague mankind.

Due to horrible physical deformities, he spent much of his life as a fairground freak. He was hounded, persecuted, and starving, until his fortune changed and he was rescued, housed, and fed by the distinguished surgeon, Frederick Treves. The subject of several books, a Broadway hit, and a film, Joseph Merrick has become part of popular mythology. Here, in this fully revised edition containing much fresh information, are the true and un-romanticized facts of his life.

Nearly one in every five Americans deals with mental illness in a given year, and the rates are climbing. Among physicians, the rate is even higher as the time spent in medical training significantly increases the risk of poor mental health. None of us is fully immune from the ravages of mental health problems. This book is about the fallibility of us all, including the doctors who are supposed to care for us. It is about the fine line of illness and normal emotion and about how to change the norms of medical practice in light of human weakness.

This audiobook chronicles the triumphs and failures of his surgical life. Having spent his childhood in the backstreets of a northern steel town, he went on to become one of the world's foremost heart surgeons. His drive for perfection in his profession took him to the world-renowned Harefield Hospital, the foremost heart surgery centre in Birmingham, Alabama and the newly-created Cardiothoracic Centre in Oxford. Then in 2019 in Wuhan he was the first Western doctor to learn about Covid-19 before the virus was identified.

In the midst of World War II, James is training for the Royal Air Force, while going home to Yorkshire whenever possible to see his very pregnant wife, Helen. Musing on past adventures through the dales, visiting with old friends, and introducing scores of new and amusing characters—animal and human alike—Herriot enthralls with his uncanny ability to spin a most engaging and heartfelt yarn.

Actor Jim Beaver (Supernatural, Deadwood, Justified) and his wife Cecily Adams (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Moogie) were at the peaks of their careers and happily raising a beautiful two-year old daughter, Madeline. Then tragedy struck, not once, but twice. What followed was laid down by Jim in a moving, poignant, and uplifting journal of the following year, a year filled with heartbreak as well as enormous gifts and invaluable lessons, not just for Jim and his family but for listeners who traveled along with him on his journey.

In the early days of the Cold War, a spirit of desperate scientific rivalry birthed a different kind of space race: not the race to outer space that we all know, but a race to master the inner space of the human body. While surgeons on either side of the Iron Curtain competed to become the first to transplant organs like the kidney and heart, a young American neurosurgeon had an even more ambitious thought: Why not transplant the brain?

In March 2020, soon-to-graduate medical students in New York City were nervously awaiting “match day” when they would learn where they would begin their residencies. Only a week later, these young physicians learned that they would be sent to the front lines of the desperate battle to save lives as the coronavirus plunged the city into crisis. In this powerful book, New York Times journalist Emma Goldberg offers an up-close portrait of six bright yet inexperienced health professionals, each of whom defies a stereotype about who gets to don a doctor’s white coat.

Today he is known as Dr. Q, an internationally renowned neurosurgeon and neuroscientist who leads cutting-edge research to cure brain cancer. But not too long ago, he was Freddy, a 19-year-old undocumented migrant worker toiling in the fields of Central California. Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa tells his amazing life story - from his impoverished childhood in the tiny village of Palaco, Mexico, to his harrowing border crossing and his transformation from illegal immigrant to American citizen and gifted student at the University of California at Berkeley and at Harvard Medical School.

Join me as I try to dodge flying fists, amorous advances, sticky fingers, airborne objects, and other unsavory surprises. You'll roll with laughter and cry with compassion. You'll meet real patients who inspire you even at the lowest point of their lives. You'll meet patients who, despite their challenges, aren't too different from yourself, your family, friends, or that creepy guy staring at you from the window. Made you look.

In the early 2000s, 16-year-old Todd Davison and his older brother Wade were living the Canadian hockey dream—playing together in the Western Hockey League, a stepping-stone for many future NHL stars. Todd seemed destined to be one of them. But after facing off against Sidney Crosby at the Canada Winter Games in 2003, that dream became a nightmare when Todd's mysterious shoulder pain led to a devastating cancer diagnosis. His Last Shift: The Playbook of Todd Davison recounts the journey of an incredible young man as he comes to terms with his death long before his time.

ALS is a deadly disease that didn't want to let go of me. I went from hope to planning my own death as a way of escaping this demon. My journey is a view into the life of a person who needs 24-hour care, never any privacy. I was given 18 months to get my affairs in order. That lead me to seeking a higher power than the doctors. I have never witnessed an energy healing until it happened to me. This book is my call to each of you and your family who are challenged by ALS. My frame of mind was my only power.

From medical expert Leana Wen, MD, Lifelines is an insider's account of public health and its crucial role - from opioid addiction to global pandemic - and an inspiring story of her journey from struggling immigrant to being one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People.

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.