Medical Memoirs

They didn't start out as environmental warriors. Clair Patterson was a geochemist focused on determining the age of the Earth. Herbert Needleman was a pediatrician treating inner-city children. But in the chemistry lab and the hospital ward, they met a common enemy: lead. It was literally everywhere. Though few people worried about it at the time, lead was also toxic. In Toxic Truth, journalist Lydia Denworth tells the little-known stories of these two men who were among the first to question the wisdom of filling the world with such a harmful metal.

Danielle Perreault a neuf ans la première fois qu’elle souhaite s’expatrier: son père s’est fait offrir un poste à la nouvelle Université du Rwanda et, pour elle, c’est tout décidé : ils partent en Afrique ! Mais son père, à sa grande déception, refuse... Dix ans plus tard, toujours attirée par l’aventure, elle part enseigner au Togo. Elle reçoit un salaire de vingt dollars par mois, mais elle est logée, nourrie, et on lui fournit la mobylette. Que demander de plus?!

When Catherine Cho and her husband set off from London to introduce their newborn son to family scattered across the United States, she could not have imagined what lay in store. Before the trip’s end, she develops psychosis, a complete break from reality, which causes her to lose all sense of time and place, including what is real and not real. In desperation, her husband admits her to a nearby psychiatric hospital, where she begins the hard work of rebuilding her identity. In this unwaveringly honest, insightful, and often shocking memoir, Catherine reconstructs her sense of self.

In this revelatory memoir, doctor Cynthia Li shares the truth other doctors don’t always understand and often won’t share if they do - that chronic illness is complicated, and that treatment is not just a matter of test results and prescriptions but requires a more comprehensive approach. By sharing her own struggle with a disabling autoimmune crisis, which forced her to question her own conventional medical training and embrace the integrative principles of functional medicine, Li reveals the insider knowledge sufferers need to truly begin healing - mind, body, and spirit.

How does one begin to treat such cases, to counsel people whose lives may be changed forever? How does one train the next generation of clinicians to deal with the moral and medical aspects of brain disease? Dr. Ropper and his colleague answer these questions by taking the listener into a rarified world where lives and minds hang in the balance.

Writer and political activist Mike Marqusee was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer, in the summer of 2007. At first, disinclined to share his misery with others, he was reluctant to write about his illness. But he then came to realize that doing so provided a precious continuity with his life as a writer before contracting the disease, and a way of reaching out to a wider world that the illness made physically less accessible.

When my partner Catherine and I were in our 50s, we found out in short order that I needed a heart valve replacement, and she had early-onset Alzheimer's. We both have a history as endurance athletes, so our reaction to this news was to sell our home, retire from our jobs, and become nomads, running marathons and half-marathons all over the world.

James Herriot meets Jeff Foxworthy in the real-life adventures of a traveling horse doctor. Climb into the truck alongside large animal vet Dr. Madison Seamans and race to the aid of horses with wounds, stomach aches, allergies, and bizarre behaviors, as well as those in severe physical distress. Quite by accident, you'll find yourself familiar with and understanding common equine medical problems and how they are diagnosed and treated, all while marveling at the remarkable situations a country veterinarian can find himself in.

ஒரு எளிய கதை, காட்டின் மீதான நேசிப்பை அகத்துள் ஏற்படுத்துமா? என்ற கேள்வியை அறிவுச் சமூகம் எழுப்புமாயின், ஜெயமோகனின் யானை டாக்டர் கதையை நாம் துணிந்து முன்வைக்கலாம். கால்நடை டாக்டர் கிருஷ்ணமூர்த்தி, யானைகளின் உடல்நிலையைப் பேணுவதற்காக உருவாக்கிய விதிமுறைகள் தான் இந்திய வனவியல் துறையின் கையேடாக இன்று உள்ளது.

Ingrassia lost his mother, two sisters, brother, and nephew to cancer—different cancers developing at different points throughout their lives. And while highly unusual, his family is not the only one to wonder whether their heartbreak is the result of unbelievable bad luck, or if there might be another explanation. Through meticulous research and riveting storytelling, Ingrassia takes us from the 1960s—when Dr. Frederick Pei Li and Dr. Joseph Fraumeni Jr. first met, not yet knowing that they would help make a groundbreaking discovery that would affect cancer patients for decades to come.

Human history hinges on the battle to confront our most dangerous enemies—the half-dozen diseases responsible for killing almost all of mankind. The story of our medical triumphs reveals an inspiring tapestry of human achievement, but the journey was far from smooth. It is a tale replete with dramatic episodes as spellbinding as any blockbuster Hollywood movie. In The Masters of Medicine, Dr. Andrew Lam, an award-winning author and retinal surgeon, distills the long arc of medical progress down to the crucial moments that were responsible for the world's greatest medical miracles.

A doctor’s powerful and deeply human memoir about the mysteries of the brain and his 40-year quest to find a treatment for multiple sclerosis.

Madame Restell is a sharp, witty Gilded Age medical history which introduces us to an iconic, yet tragically overlooked, feminist heroine: a glamorous women’s healthcare provider in Manhattan, known to the world as Madame Restell. A celebrity in her day with a flair for high fashion and public, petty beefs, Restell was a self-made woman and single mother who used her wit, her compassion, and her knowledge of family medicine to become one of the most in-demand medical workers in New York.

The technology invented by psychiatrist Robert G. Heath at Tulane University in 1950s and 60s has been described as one of "the most controversial yet largely undocumented experiments in US history" - controversial to us because Heath's patients included incarcerated convicts and gay men to be 'cured' of their sexual preference; controversial in its day because his work was allegedly part of MKUltra, the CIA's notorious "mind control" project. As a result, Heath's cutting-edge research and legacy were put under lock and key, buried in Tulane's archives.

When Amy B. Scher was struck with undiagnosed late-stage, chronic Lyme disease, the best physicians in America labeled her condition incurable and potentially terminal. Deteriorating rapidly, she went on a search to save her own life - from the top experts in Los Angeles and the world-renowned Mayo Clinic in Minneapolis to a state-of-the-art hospital in Chicago. After exhausting all of her options in the US, she discovered a possible cure - but it was highly experimental, available only in India, and had as much of a probability of killing her as it did of curing her.

In the fall of 1995, Dr. Saray Stancic was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. By 2003, she walked regularly with a cane, had given up virtually all unnecessary physical activity, and was on numerous medications, all with horrible side effects. After stumbling upon some studies that linked MS outcomes to diet and lifestyle, Dr. Stancic undertook a radically different approach to managing her illness.

My Name'5 Doddie is a humbling, courageous and very funny celebration of a remarkable man. The extraordinary, life-affirming autobiography of Doddie Weir is an absolute must-listen – rugby fan or not. Rugby legend and MND campaigner Doddie Weir has always lived life to the full. On the pitch, Doddie's irresistible talent took him to the heart of every team he graced and brought him 61 caps for Scotland. He won fans all over the world with his sportsmanship, humour and boundless energy. Then, in June 2017, Doddie made the announcement that he had been diagnosed with MND.

تمضي نوال سعداوي في سرد مذكراتها كطبيبة كانت بحاجة في لحظة من اللحظات إلى من يداويها، يداوي آمالها التي انبعثت مع لحظات انبثاق أنوثتها، وآلامها التي تفجرت مع تفجر هذه الأنوثة، المجتمع بتداعيات معتقداته، والأهل بسجن عاداتهم وأفكارهم، والنفس بهواجسها وتطلعاتها ومعصيانها وتمردها، وبإذعانها أخيراً لشيء ما، تعلن مذكراتها.

In this highly personal account, Dr Gibbs documents the effect his diagnosis has had on his life and explains his advocacy for improving early recognition of Alzheimer’s. Weaving clinical knowledge from decades caring for dementia patients with his personal experience of the disease, this is an optimistic tale of one man’s journey with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease.

On October 13, 1972, a Uruguayan Air Force plane carrying members of the "Old Christians" rugby team - and many of their friends and family members - crashed into the Andes Mountains. I Had to Survive offers a gripping and heartrending recollection of the harrowing, brink-of-death experience that propelled survivor Roberto Canessa to become one of the world's leading pediatric cardiologists.