Medical

In this inspiring book, Dr. Rolle tells the story of his incredible journey, revealing how a strong work ethic, deep faith, and the family values instilled by his Bahamian immigrant parents set the stage for the transformative life philosophy that enabled him to overcome adversity....

At the age of 36, on the verge of completing a decade's worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer....

A searing, deeply moving memoir of illness and recovery traces one young woman’s journey from diagnosis to remission to reentry into “normal” life....

In the tradition of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone and shows such as In Treatment, a riveting look behind the closed door of the therapist's office....

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells - taken without her knowledge - became one of the most important tools in medicine....

The heartrending story of a midcentury American family with 12 children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science's great hope in the quest to understand the disease....

A Harvard-trained neurosurgeon's minute-by-minute account of his own near-death experience - and what he discovered in the heavenly realm beyond life.....

One morning in late 2017, New York Times columnist Frank Bruni woke up with strangely blurred vision. He wondered at first if some goo or gunk had worked its way into his right eye. But this was no fleeting annoyance, no fixable inconvenience....

Marsha Linehan tells the story of her journey from suicidal teenager to world-renowned developer of the life-saving behavioral therapy DBT, using her own struggle to develop life skills for others....

A neuroscientist transforms the way we think about our brains, our health, and our personal happiness in this clear, informative, and inspiring guide....

In My Stroke of Insight, Taylor shares her perspective on the brain and its capacity for recovery, and the sense of omniscient understanding she gained from this inspiring voyage....

When 24-year-old Susannah Cahalan woke up alone in a hospital room, strapped to her bed and unable to move or speak, she had no memory of how she’d gotten there. Days earlier, she had been on the threshold of a new, adult life....

A landmark exploration of one of the most consequential and mysterious issues of our time: the rise of chronic illness and autoimmune diseases....

Kate Bowler is a professor at Duke Divinity School with a modest Christian upbringing, but she specializes in the study of the prosperity gospel, a creed that sees fortune as a blessing from God and misfortune as a mark of God's disapproval....

Delve into the magical, unforgettable world of James Herriot, the world's most beloved veterinarian, and his menagerie of heartwarming, funny, and tragic animal patients....

Kidder tells the true story of a socially conscious genius who uses his intellectual and personal gifts to solve global health problems.

Scribbled in secret after endless days, sleepless nights, and missed weekends, comedian and former medical resident Adam Kay’s This Is Going to Hurt provides a no-holds-barred account of his time on the front lines of medicine....

With poignant insight and humor, Frank Vertosick, Jr., MD, describes some of the greatest challenges of his career, including a six-week-old infant with a tumor in her brain and more....

They all thought he was gone. But he was alive and trapped inside his own body for ten years....

I’ve gone from being a hapless victim of my anxiety, never knowing when it would end, to having a path that helps me every single time anxiety comes up. People with anxiety are confused because they don't know what is happening to them....

You've never listened to a book like The Reason I Jump....

After his December 2003 arrest, registered nurse Charlie Cullen was quickly dubbed "The Angel of Death" by the media....

Lindsey Fitzharris, the award-winning author of The Butchering Art, presents the compelling, true story of a visionary surgeon who rebuilt the faces of the First World War’s injured heroes, and in the process ushered in the modern era of plastic surgery....

Just two months before the September 11 terrorist attacks, Dr. Judy Melinek began her training as a New York City forensic pathologist....

James Herriot is one of the most beloved storytellers of our time, a writer whose rich and unique literary gifts are matched by an exuberant gift for celebrating existence...

In the multibillion-dollar business of American medicine, doctors are often portrayed as culprits—opportunistic millionaires who prey on the misfortune of their hapless patients and drive up the cost of health care. But often they are the real victims of a system designed to increase profits for the insurance companies, shady businessmen, and Big Government. 

In this inspiring book, Dr. Rolle tells the story of his incredible journey, revealing how a strong work ethic, deep faith, and the family values instilled by his Bahamian immigrant parents set the stage for the transformative life philosophy that enabled him to overcome adversity, defy expectations, and create a life of meaning and purpose.

Anna Kent has delivered babies in war zones, caring for the most vulnerable women in the most vulnerable places in the world. At 26 years old, not yet a fully trained midwife, she delivered a baby in a tropical storm by the light of a headtorch; the following year, she would be responsible for the female health of 30,000 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. But returning to the UK to work for the NHS, she soon learned that even at home the right to a safe birth was impossible to take for granted.

On the morning of October 21, 1966, Kathleen Middleton, a music teacher in suburban London, awoke choking and gasping, convinced disaster was about to strike. An hour later, a mountain of rubble containing waste from a coal mine collapsed above the village of Aberfan, swamping buildings and killing 144 people, many of them children. Among the doctors and emergency workers who arrived on the scene was John Barker, a psychiatrist from Shelton Hospital, in Shrewsbury.

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. 

These heartwarming and inspiring stories by brave women and men who have survived breast cancer are a must-listen for anyone personally or indirectly afflicted by the disease. How We Beat Breast Cancer brings together the experiences, thoughts, struggles, and victories of unique women and men from all walks of life, who tell the stories of their battles with breast cancer. Their narratives portray both the good and the bad in a real, candid language, sharing everything from diagnosis, through treatment, to life with and after cancer.

Just when life seemed rosy and the sun was shining, Dr. Bhaskar Bora sustained a severe spinal cord injury in July 2019 following an operation, which left him with paralysis of both legs, a nonfunctioning right hand, and a long stay in the hospital, eventually leading to a forced medical retirement from his medical career and a wheelchair in place of a sports car. Poorer financially but richer in experiences of life, he is now a voice for the disabled and has written the book The Second Chance in Life as an honest reflection of his life experiences.

Helena Rho was six years old when her family left Seoul, Korea, for America and its opportunities. Years later, her Korean-ness behind her, Helena had everything a model minority was supposed to want: she was married to a white American doctor and had a beautiful home, two children, and a career as an assistant professor of pediatrics. For decades she fulfilled the expectations of others. All the while Helena kept silent about the traumas - both professional and personal - that left her anxious yet determined to escape.

“Ten years after a car accident paralyzed my legs, a pressure sore infection escalated into a life-or-death scenario requiring emergency surgery, followed by an extended recovery in a nursing home. For weeks, I was confined to a special medical bed, where I was not allowed to sit up, but required to remain on my back 24/7. This is the story of my search for peace and sanity during that claustrophobic confinement, which subsequently led to a deeper understanding and alignment of my internal, eternal well-being". (Author Ashley Lyn Olson).

Just after COVID arrived in North America, journalist Helen Epstein was diagnosed with endometrial cancer—one of a predicted 66,570 new cases of cancer of the uterine body in the United States in 2021. About 600,000 American women have had it. A candid and eye-opening account of a medical steeplechase of surgery, chemo, and radiation therapy, Getting Through It brings together reporting, research, and elements of memoir to tell an important story. A guide for other women, their caregivers, and their families.

Martha is ambitious, competitive, successful, and now divorced. As she seeks to reinvent herself, she joins a dating site looking for companionship. Instead, she finds her soul mate in Stephan. They do everything together: work, travel, dance, sing, and love. Everything changes when Stephan is diagnosed with frontotemporal degeneration (FTD) and then with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS—Lou Gehrig's disease). As the diseases progress, the dynamic, vivacious man Martha married disappears. Does Martha have what it takes to care for him?

As a nurse for nearly 50 years, Keith Cox provided expert care and comfort to countless people facing the unimaginable. With insight and sensitivity, A Caring Life takes us behind the scenes of his remarkable nursing career and the moving stories of hope, determination and loss that underpinned it. Along the way, he shares lessons gained from a career spent confronting mortality, from finding joy in difficult circumstances to understanding that true strength comes in thinking of others and being part of a community.

As the effects of the war raging in Europe begins to be felt at home in London, Monica Dickens decides to do her bit and to pursue a new career and so enrols as a student nurse at a hospital. By nature clever and spirited, she struggles to submit to the iron rule of the Matron and Sisters and is alternately infuriated and charmed by her patients. That's not to mention the mountains of menial work that are a trainee's lot. But there are friends among the staff and patients, night-time escapades to dances with dashing army men and her secret writing project to keep her going.

In The Song of Our Scars, physician Haider Warraich offers a bold reexamination of the nature of pain, not as a simple physical sensation, but as a cultural experience. Warraich, himself a sufferer of chronic pain, considers the ways our notions of pain have been shaped not just by science but by politics and power, by whose suffering mattered and whose didn’t. 

In What We Wish Were True, Quinn achingly grapples with the possibility of leaving behind the husband and children she adores, and what it means to live with a terminal diagnosis and still find meaning. “I think about how my purpose may be the same in death as it continues to be in life—surrendering to the hope that our weaknesses can be made strong, that what is broken can be made whole,” she writes.