Medical Memoirs

Spanning 10 decades, A Surgeon's Tale is a historical biography that reaches beyond the mere personal to convey something of the cultures, people, politics, and places that touch the inscrutable heart of human nature. This multifaceted immigrant's story percolates with tales of childhood neglect, intrigue, medical training, medical discoveries, scientific dishonesty, illicit romance, unspeakable scoundrels and murder, all the while disclosing the rites, rituals, rules, and language of surgery.

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.

With two young boys, a new lecturer position, and all the commitments of an active life, Ros Ben-Moshe had no plans for a tumor to take over her life. Yet after the news came on her 43rd birthday, medical appointments turned into hours of surgery, casual conversations disappeared, and even her children started asking questions. In recovery rooms, as the clock slowly ticks, Ros Ben-Moshe starts writing. Through ups and downs, she tells it all, in an honest account of fighting the Big C, or should we say the small c?

دائمًا ما يصاحب الألم مواقف إنسانية تجمع بين الطبيب والمريض، إحداها طريفة وأخرى مبكية ومحزنة، يسردها الكاتب الساخر عزت صبري، من خلال "حالة طوارئ ج"، كونه طبيبا ويتعامل مع المرضى بشكل مباشر.

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.

His name was Joshua Silver. He was 23 years old, educated, and had an impressive vocabulary. The NYPD had found Joshua Silver naked in Times Square, barking like a dog. It was just another night for Julie Holland, the attending doctor in the world famous Bellevue Hospital's psychiatric emergency room.

One day in 2002 the 50-year old body of former Pittsburgh Steeler and hall of famer Mike Webster was laid on a cold table in front of pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu. Webster's body looked to Omalu like the body of a much older man, and the circumstances of his behavior prior to his death were clouded in mystery. But when Omalu cut into Webster's brain, it appeared to be normal. Something didn't add up.

Furiously Happy meets Elaine Lui in this truly original - and surprisingly hilarious - memoir about one woman’s journey to learn how to walk after a debilitating diagnosis turned her life upside down.Learn How to Walk (Again) To-Do List: Step 1: Stand, Step 2: Step, Step 3: Pee (Yes!), Step 4: Walk with walker, Step 5: Walk with sticks, Step 6: Walk without props Recreational interlude for sex Step, 7: RUN! Ruth Marshall - power-mom, wife, actor, and daughter - was in great health, until one day, her feet started to tingle.

Nur sechs Tage nach der Geburt ihrer Tochter Leni merken Vanessa und Markus, dass etwas nicht stimmt. Sie alarmieren den Notarzt. Es folgt eine beunruhigende Odyssee aus Krankenhausaufenthalten, Untersuchungen und schlaflosen Nächten - und dem Ausblick auf Operationen, die schwerwiegende Konsequenzen für Leni haben. Durch Höhen und Tiefen halten die Eltern zusammen, stützen sich auf Ärzt*innen und den Fortschritt der Medizin. Ein Mutmacher-Hörbuch über Hoffnung, Resilienz und den Wert der Familie.

From insulin comas and lobotomy to incarceration and exile, Walter Brown chronicles the troubling history of the diagnosis and (often ineffective) treatment of bipolar disorder through the centuries, before the publication of a groundbreaking research paper in 1949. Cade's "Lithium Salts in the Treatment of Psychotic Excitement" described, for the first time, lithium's astonishing efficacy at both treating and preventing the recurrence of manic-depressive episodes, and would eventually transform the lives of patients, pharmaceutical researchers, and practicing physicians worldwide.

Having once aspired to be a journalist, Griggs found that the only way to make sense of what she was witnessing around her and maintain her sanity was to keep a diary. The Sky Was Falling is her day-to-day account of what most of us were grateful to only see in the news—the sharply increasing case numbers, the dwindling supply of respirators, the lack of clarity on how to treat this new disease.

In his memoir of an improbable start-up in public health, Ashok Alaxander writes about an organization with the audacious goal of ending needless deaths and sickness at scale, amongst India's poorest mothers and children. It is a great leap emboldened by an unshakable faith in the 'idea that cannot be denied'. It is a tale of adventure filled with twists and turns, told with a disarming honesty.

Cory Friedman woke up one morning when he was five years old with the uncontrollable urge to twitch his neck. From that day forward his life became a hell of irrepressible tics and involuntary utterances, and Cory embarked on an excruciating journey from specialist to specialist to discover the cause of his disease. Soon it became unclear what tics were symptoms of his disease and what were side effects of the countless combinations of drugs. The only certainty is that it kept getting worse. Simply put: Cory Friedman's life was a living hell.

Unlocking the doors to the psych ward, NHS psychiatrist Dr Benji Waterhouse provides a fly-on-the-padded-wall account of medicine’s most mysterious and controversial speciality. Why would anyone in their right mind choose to be a psychiatrist? Are the solutions to people’s messy lives really within medical school textbooks? And how can vulnerable patients receive the care they need when psychiatry lacks staff, hospital beds and any actual cures?

This is the story of one man's battle to pursue his dreams despite an often incapacitating brain disorder. From his early experiences of fear and denial to his exasperating search for treatment, Kurt Eichenwald provides a deeply candid account of his years facing this misunderstood and often stigmatized condition. He details his encounters with the doctors whose negligence could have killed him, but for the heroic actions of a brilliant neurologist and the family and friends who fought for him.

When Henry Scowcroft's partner, Zarah, was diagnosed with stage-four bladder cancer in 2016, their world fell apart. An award-winning science writer for Cancer Research UK, Henry had spent 14 years at the coal-face of cancer research, but now the disease had infiltrated his personal life too. Henry uses this unique perspective to tell the story of Zarah's illness, how he tried in vain to use everything he'd learnt in his professional career to try to save her and in doing so, how he realised that even a career writing about cancer daily isn't enough preparation for what comes next.

Essai, récit, exercice de réflexion, ce travail journalistique minutieusement documenté aborde la question du cancer à travers l’expérience personnelle de Josée Blanchette et les témoignages qu’elle a reçus. Cette enquête sur un sujet majeur donne la parole à de nombreux spécialistes, lucides et parfois critiques. L’autrice remet en question les accointances entre l’oncologie et les compagnies pharmaceutiques, effectue une incursion en médecine intégrative, et propose des pistes de prévention et de postvention.

Dr. W. Lee Warren, a practicing brain surgeon, assumed he knew most outcomes for people with glioblastoma, head injuries, and other health-care problems. Yet even as he tried to give patients hope, his own heart would sink as he realized, I've seen the end of you. But it became far more personal when the acclaimed doctor experienced an unimaginable family tragedy. That's when he reached the end of himself. Gripping medical stories serve as the backdrop for a raw, honest look at how we can remain on solid ground when everything goes wrong.

From the man who first discovered the effective treatment for COVID-19 and who found himself facing vilification instead of congratulation, now comes the complete story of Dr. Vladimir “Zev” Zelenko’s rise from a modest family physician to an internationally recognized champion for medical freedom.

At age 14, Claire Bidwell Smith - an only child - learned that both of her parents had cancer. The fear of becoming a family of one before she came of age compels Claire to make a series of fraught choices, set against the glittering backdrop of New York and Los Angeles - and the pall of regret. When the inevitable happens, and Claire is alone in the world, she is inconsolable at the revelation that suddenly she is no one's special person.