Medical Essays

One of Literary Hub's Most Anticipated Books of 2025 A Goodreads Readers' Most Anticipated Fall Book From the New York Times bestselling author of Stiff and Fuzz, a rollicking exploration of the quest to re-create the impossible complexities of human anatomy. The body is the most complex machine...

A collection of more than fifty hard-to-crack medical quandaries, featuring the best of The New York Times Magazine's popular Diagnosis column—now a Netflix original series “Lisa Sanders is a paragon of the modern medical detective storyteller.”—Atul Gawande, author of Being Mortal As a...

An award-winning investigative journalist's horrifying true crime story of America's deadliest drug contamination outbreak and the greed and deception that fueled it. Two pharmacists sit in a Boston courtroom accused of murder. The weapon: the fungus Exserohilum rostratum. The death count: 100...

AN OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB SELECTION Shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize Longlisted for the 2021 National Book Award for Fiction A heartrending new novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning and #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Overstory. I never believed the diagnoses the doctors settled...

Finally, a genuine shortcut to writing a great personal statement or statement of purpose (SOP)! In this easy-to-read and entertaining text, filled with valuable tips and techniques, the author guides you methodically through each step of his innovative and time-saving system. Daniel K. Berman is a Harvard graduate, former college teacher and PhD, with more than 30 years of admissions coaching experience. Dozens of five-star reviews on sites such as Yelp and Google testify to the success of his easy-to-understand, time-tested methodology. Fast-track your way to a compelling personal ...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER The New York Times bestselling author of Being Mortal and Complications examines, in riveting accounts of medical failure and triumph, how success is achieved in a complex and risk-filled profession The struggle to perform well is universal: each one of us faces fatigue...

Sometimes in medicine the only way to know what is truly going on in a patient is to operate, to look inside with one's own eyes. This audio is exploratory surgery on medicine itself, laying bare a science not in its idealized form, but as it actually is - complicated, perplexing, and profoundly human. Atul Gawande offers an unflinching view from the scalpel's edge, where science is ambiguous, information is limited, the stakes are high. In dramatic and revealing stories of patients and doctors, he explores how deadly mistakes occur and why good surgeons go bad.

In his award-winning debut essay collection, What Cannot Be Undone, Walter M. Robinson shares surprising stories of illness and medicine that do not sacrifice hard truth for easy dramatics. These true stories are filled with details of difficult days and nights in the world of high-tech medical care, and they show the ongoing struggle in making critical decisions with no good answer. This collection presents the raw moments where his expertise in medical ethics and pediatrics are put to the test.

Medical mistakes are more pervasive than we think. How can we improve outcomes? An acclaimed MD’s rich stories and research explore patient safety. Patients enter the medical system with faith that they will receive the best care possible, so when things go wrong, it’s a profound and painful...

Introspective, richly layered, and surprisingly hopeful, A Real Emergency is a love letter from a paramedic to the best and worst parts of her career. For fifteen years, Joanna Sokol filled private notebooks with her confusion, humor, and anger toward the strange world of emergency street...

Narrated by the visionary founding member, Hell's Angel provides a fascinating all-access pass to the secret world of the notorious Hell's Angels Motorcycle Club. Sonny Barger recounts the birth of the original Oakland Hell's Angels and the four turbulent decades that followed. Hell's Angel also...

How is a person changed by commitment to their passion, and how does their commitment change over time? These are questions that esteemed climber Sonnie Trotter asks as he reflects on the most thrilling adventures of his sport and his life. 2025 is Sonnie Trotter’s 30th year climbing. He’s...

From the co-author of Three Cups of Tea comes the inspiring story of two very different doctors—one from the United States, the other from Nepal—united in a common mission: to rid the world of preventable blindness. In this transporting book, David Oliver Relin shines a light on the work...

Can refocusing conversations between doctors and their patients lead to better health? Despite modern medicine’s infatuation with high-tech gadgetry, the single most powerful diagnostic tool is the doctor-patient conversation, which can uncover the lion’s share of illnesses. However, what...

From one of America's most celebrated psychiatrists, the book that has taught generations of healers why healing the sick is about more than just diagnosing their illness. Modern medicine treats sick patients like broken machines -- figure out what is physically wrong, fix it, and send the...

"Petkoff gives a flawless performance of this doctor/naturalist's memoir, conveying both his inquisitiveness and assuredness with aplomb." - AudioFile "A fascinating, lyrical book... Reisman's experiences in other cultures bring a richness and depth to The Unseen Body. The way he thinks about...

"Wonderful... Physicans would do well to learn this most important lesson about caring for patients." —The New York Times Book Review Over the years that Victoria Sweet has been a physician, “healthcare” has replaced medicine, “providers” look at their laptops more than at their...

How hard-working individuals have kept abortion afloat in the wake of Roe v. Wade’s destruction, and the continued help needed if we want to sustain it When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, many feared it meant the end of abortion access in the United States. Yet the...

An award-winning sexuality educator takes down society’s deeply entrenched colonial views on sex and gender throughout history in this accessible, candid, and revolutionary exploration of how we can—and should—reclaim our minds and bodies for a more pleasurable existence for all. When you...

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2022 by Literary Hub A leading microbiologist tackles the scientific and sociopolitical impact of viruses in twelve striking essays. Invisible in the food we eat, the people we kiss, and inside our own bodies, viruses flourish—with the power to shape not only...