Some Worthwhile Summer Reading

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LizzyM

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Looking at my bookshelf this morning turned my thoughts to books that pre-meds might find interesting & thought provoking. These are oldies that you may find at your local library and they are also available online - often at a discount!

Forgive and Remember Managing Medical Failure by Charles L. Bosk. It is an oldie but very good, a sociologist's field report of a year (or so) following surgical teams. Very readable.

The Lazarus Case Life and Death Issues in Neonatal Intensive Care by John D. Lantos, MD.

Letters to a Young Doctor by Richard Selzer, MD (his other books of essays & short stories are good, too)

Make a few notes about what you read (in these books or others) and you'll have something to bring up at interview.

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Samuel Shem's "House of God" is a cult classic. Very different, but I think a good read.
 
I recommend a couple books by Crichton. Case of Need and Travels. I wouldn't read anything too serious though.

Some other ones that I heard about Complications by Gawande (this one isn't lighthearted :( ) and when the air hits the brain by someone.
 
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cgscribe said:
Samuel Shem's "House of God" is a cult classic. Very different, but I think a good read.

House of God is hilarious but the sequel Mount Misery is terrible. However, House of God is very dark and cynical and might be better saved for after you start your clinical rotations. It is not something to bring up at an interview and don't ever refer to a patient as a GOMER or an attending is likely to.... :smuggrin:
 
Jedix123 said:
I recommend a couple books by Crichton. Case of Need and Travels. I wouldn't read anything too serious though.

Some other ones that I heard about Complications by Gawande (this one isn't lighthearted :( ) and when the air hits the brain by someone.

Travels is very good, I enjoyed it a lot!
 
Anyone read "The Making of a Surgeon" by William Nolen? A little outdated, but a very pleasant book. I love the way he specifically mentions complete cases to point out his mistakes/lessons and achievements.
 
Catch 22. What could be more timely?
 
for those interested in neuro: another day in the frontal lobe----katrina fink, md. I
'm not interested in neuro, but I'm premed because I went through one of the surgeries discussed in the book, so there were a lot of things she covers that either remind me of childhood, or my early teens when I underwent the said surgery. It's not quite as dark as 'house of god' but you'll see some similarities between the two.
 
Read Harry Potter. There is no reason to be reading all of this crap right now. Just relax and read something that you find fun and entertaining. Everyone is too worked up with reading things like science journals, medical texts, etc. You will have plenty of time to do that during your education, and for the next 40+ yrs.
 
LizzyM said:
House of God is hilarious but the sequel Mount Misery is terrible. However, House of God is very dark and cynical and might be better saved for after you start your clinical rotations. It is not something to bring up at an interview and don't ever refer to a patient as a GOMER or an attending is likely to.... :smuggrin:

House of God is extremely cynical, and yet I think it ought to be required reading for all premeds. Not because it's the attitude people ought to take, but I think it helps people take themselves a little bit less serious as they head towards a career in medicine. The world would be a better place if it were full of Fat Men... :)
 
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I recently read the nonfiction "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder.I liked it a lot and it's a story that practically reads itself. It's funny, anecdota, and provoking. It's by a Pulitzer Prize winning author who befriends an eccentric, though amazing doctor who inspires others to overlook convention and provide humane medicine to those less fortunate in the world like he does in Haiti. I definitely opened my eyes to global healthcare and its paths with politics and history.
 
A great book to ready yourself for innevitable medical based interview questions, and even just for personal interest is The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance by Laurie Garrett. Very interesting and intriguing.
 
olivetofu said:
I recently read the nonfiction "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder.I liked it a lot and it's a story that practically reads itself. It's funny, anecdota, and provoking. It's by a Pulitzer Prize winning author who befriends an eccentric, though amazing doctor who inspires others to overlook convention and provide humane medicine to those less fortunate in the world like he does in Haiti. I definitely opened my eyes to global healthcare and its paths with politics and history.

Mountains Beyound Mountains is a great one. I love it. :love: I evern mentioned it in my personal statement. However, keep in mind that it is biased somewhat...
 
VPDcurt said:
Read Harry Potter. There is no reason to be reading all of this crap right now. Just relax and read something that you find fun and entertaining. Everyone is too worked up with reading things like science journals, medical texts, etc. You will have plenty of time to do that during your education, and for the next 40+ yrs.

Actually, the Harry Potter books were the only books that came up at any of my interviews (yes, it was at VCU).

I also found Healthcare Meltdown to be a very informative book for interviews.
 
ZacharyMD said:
A great book to ready yourself for innevitable medical based interview questions, and even just for personal interest is The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance by Laurie Garrett. Very interesting and intriguing.

The Coming Plague made me go into medicine. Period. (Well, and some other stuff :))It's one of the best books I've ever read. I'm a former journalist and Laurie Garrett is my hero.

When the Air Hits Your Brain was a fun read. A good summer compromise between relaxing and being a pre-med.

What I'm Making Everyone Read This Week: First Cut: A Season in the Human Anatomy Lab
 
i'm surprised no one has mentioned complications or the intern blues. i also thoroughly enjoyed when the air hits your brain

edit: someone mentioned complications, my bad.
 
prana_md said:
The Coming Plague made me go into medicine. Period. (Well, and some other stuff :))It's one of the best books I've ever read. I'm a former journalist and Laurie Garrett is my hero.

When the Air Hits Your Brain was a fun read. A good summer compromise between relaxing and being a pre-med.

What I'm Making Everyone Read This Week: First Cut: A Season in the Human Anatomy Lab

My boss is friends with Laurie Garrett and I've gone out for beers with her... she really made me want to get an MD/MPH.
 
not totally related to Medicine, but Currently working on "the world is flat" by friedman. Interesting stuff for the most part. Sadly I still have yet to finish. (the world cup kinda got in the way).
 
LizzyM said:
You and about 2,000 other pre-meds....
LOL :laugh:

on an unrelated note, i'm currently working on an awesome book. it's called intermediate emergency care: principles and practice by bledsoe/porter/cherry. a damn good read.
 
Incidental Findings - a lot of books focus on residency but this is the first one I've read written by an attending so it's a nice new perspective.

Also, First, Do No Harm - interesting and thought provoking, discusses quality of life issues as well as financial side of healthcare
 
Thanks for the suggestions, LizzyM! I definitely want to check out those books.

The Coming Plague gets my vote as the best, definitely. Love it!

A Not Entirely Benign Procedure by Perri Klass is also pretty good.
 
YML said:
Catch 22. What could be more timely?
"Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, some have mediocrity thrust upon them. Major Major was just such a man"

I love that book.....one of the plays I was in was an adaptation of that book....I played Lt. Milo Minderbinder. :smuggrin:
 
Ooh, I love this thread!! I've been looking for books to read the next couple months while I wait for classes to start again. :D

I read Delivering Doctor Amelia by Dan Shapiro (I think) a couple weeks ago. It was a quick easy read. I couldn't put it down once I started. Nothing too profound but it obviously captured my interest.

I just put a hold on House of God at the library. :smuggrin:
 
I enjoyed Hot Lights, Cold Steel : Life, Death and Sleepless Nights in a Surgeon's First Years by Michael Collins. It gives you a good overview of a surgical residency specifically orthopedics.
 
VPDcurt said:
Read Harry Potter. There is no reason to be reading all of this crap right now. Just relax and read something that you find fun and entertaining. Everyone is too worked up with reading things like science journals, medical texts, etc. You will have plenty of time to do that during your education, and for the next 40+ yrs.

LOL. At my VCU interview, all my interviewer wanted to talk about was Harry Potter (I had never read HP, never seen a movie, nothing). Here I thought this old bear of a CT surgeon was going to rip me apart, but all he wanted to talk about was kids books. hahaha
 
I don't remember the name of the book but I read an incredible book by a man who is a primary care doctor and he detailed the process of healing others and himself (both physically and spiritually) and the things about being a doctor that impacted him the most
 
SilverBandCry! said:
I don't remember the name of the book but I read an incredible book by a man who is a primary care doctor and he detailed the process of healing others and himself (both physically and spiritually) and the things about being a doctor that impacted him the most

Most likely Healing the Wounds by David Hilfiker, M.D. He's also written Not all of Us are Saints (which is available used in hard cover for dirt cheap through Amazon) and Urban Injustice: How Ghettos Happen
 
Hot Lights Cold Steel is an awesome one, I also just read "Complications A surgeons notes on an Imperfect Science" by Atul Gawande and was pretty entertained.
 
Dr. Kenneth Kamler's books (Surviving the Extremes, Dr. on Everest) are great. He is a hand surgeon, but also a mountain climber. He has been on Everest as a team doc 4 times. :eek:

He has some great stories.
 
Goose-d said:
LOL. At my VCU interview, all my interviewer wanted to talk about was Harry Potter (I had never read HP, never seen a movie, nothing). Here I thought this old bear of a CT surgeon was going to rip me apart, but all he wanted to talk about was kids books. hahaha

Ehhh, I wouldn't go around calling them "kids books"... it is likely to stir up some negative feelings. I'm not a hardcore fan by any means but I've read them all and I went to the midnight release party for the last HP release. There were more adults and teenagers than young kids lining up to snag their copy.

In regards to some of the other books mentioned here, I've read CASE OF NEED but I would recommend Crichton's FIVE PATIENTS instead. I like Crichton, even though a lot of people frequently disrespect him.
 
GREAT THREAD :thumbup:

to add:

Overdosed America is semi-interesting but I found it redundant and boring after a while. Stiff is a great book. And if you want a novel and haven't read The Hot Zone yet, then definitely try it out.
 
DRKUBA said:
Overdosed America is semi-interesting but I found it redundant and boring after a while.

Agreed 100%
I have that and Generation Rx and I just cannot get into them, so I stopped trying. It's a real shame because I read an interview with the author of Overdosed America and it was fantastic (which is why I bought the book in the first place).

Oh well.
 
Well since I was sitting in my lab at my University, I decided to go to the library after reading this thread. I got the House of God, Letter to a Young Doctor, Why We Hurt, and The D.O.'s (since I am also applying Osteopathic.) I will let you all know what I think when I am done with them.
 
LizzyM said:
Looking at my bookshelf this morning turned my thoughts to books that pre-meds might find interesting & thought provoking. These are oldies that you may find at your local library and they are also available online - often at a discount!

thanks but i think i want something non-med related :D
 
fyi411 said:
]Looking at my bookshelf this morning turned my thoughts to books that pre-meds might find interesting & thought provoking. These are oldies that you may find at your local library and they are also available online - often at a discount!

thanks but i think i want something non-med related :D

Here are some books that I've found to be good reads:

The Coast of Chicago by Stuart Dybek (short stories)

The Death of Vishnu: A Novel by Manil Suri

Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (short stories)

Bel Canto: A Novel by Ann Patchett
 
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LizzyM said:
fyi411 said:
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (short stories)

One of my favorite short story collections. I particularly liked the last story of the book; it's themes really resonated with my family's experience.
 
rachmoninov3 said:
for those interested in neuro: another day in the frontal lobe----katrina fink, md. I
'm not interested in neuro, but I'm premed because I went through one of the surgeries discussed in the book, so there were a lot of things she covers that either remind me of childhood, or my early teens when I underwent the said surgery. It's not quite as dark as 'house of god' but you'll see some similarities between the two.

I second this.
 
Overdo$ed America was pretty interesting too. It may be a little over the top since it was written for the consumer market, but there's a lot to think about in there.
 
The Sleeping Beauty Tales by Anne Rice when she wrote under a pseudonym. Definitely a quality read. Also American Psycho by Ellis. Also Carrie's Story by Weatherfield. All that stuff is commonly read by med students, so hop to it!
 
Aww crap. And I just got back from the book store where I picked up "Health Care Meltdown" (Robert H. LeBow, M.D.) and one of those trashy romance novels.



LizzyM said:
Letters to a Young Doctor by Richard Selzer, MD (his other books of essays & short stories are good, too)


This one sounds interesting.
 
I would highly recommend Randy Shilts' And the Band Played On, his account of the public response to the AIDS crisis in the 1980s.

If you aren't in a medical book mood at the moment then try Robert Graves' I, Claudius and Claudius the God.
 
I read The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett way back in High School. For those of you who haven't done so already; read it! I also STRONGLY recommend her new book Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health. I decided to go into medicine and get my MPH after reading this book during my senior year in college. It really opened my eyes as to how my interests could become a career.
 
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman is a good book that details the cultural barriers that physicians may encounter. Well-written though Fadiman begins to repeat herself later in the book.
 
rachmoninov3 said:
for those interested in neuro: another day in the frontal lobe----katrina fink, md. I
'm not interested in neuro, but I'm premed because I went through one of the surgeries discussed in the book, so there were a lot of things she covers that either remind me of childhood, or my early teens when I underwent the said surgery. It's not quite as dark as 'house of god' but you'll see some similarities between the two.

Great book. I'd recommend it to anyone considering going into medicine. She has a writing style that kept me turning the page every night. Few authors can do that for me.
 
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