Books to read to become a better doctor

[ucfknight407]

I'm currently reading the House of God. Great book so far. Definitely a must read.

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[MCAT guy]

bump

 

[goldenwest]

How did Overdosed America not make the list?

"Required reading for all medical students and doctors." - JAMA

 

[dap]

The Illness Narratives by physician/anthropologist Arthur Kleinman should be required reading. (and may actually be some places...)

 

[hmockingbird]

I really like Your Critically Ill Child: Life and Death Choices Parents Must Face by Christopher Johnson MD. I thought it was going to be a handbook for parents but it's actually more of a collection of case studies exploring different ethics issues in pediatric care (mainly ICU and ER). Really interesting and could give you stuff to talk about in the interview.

The Scalpel and the Soul by Allan Hamilton MD - if you're interested in the spiritual side of medicine

Saving Sammy by Beth Allison Maloney - really fascinating memoir by a parent whose child had OCD that kept getting worse. The eventual diagnosis is surprising (don't read the back/inside flap if you want to be surprised). The disease he actually has is being defined and researched right now and reading this book made me feel like I was witnessing a moment in medical history. Plus bonus! You get a good idea of the parent side and it gives you a good perspective on "annoying" parents who are actually just trying to do their job and who know their kids best.

Also, if you like fiction, Jodi Picoult's books can be melodramatic and somewhat formulaic but she researches well and also pulls in ethics. My Sister's Keeper, Handle with Care, and House Rules all deal with medical issues as the main focus, plus a lot of her books have psychological elements.

 

[studyalready]

I enjoyed reading these -

Doctors - by Erich Segal
Final Diagnosis - by Arthur Hailey

 

[MCAT guy]

In honor of you bumping a thread I made 8 months ago...

Time to add to the list.

 

[MCAT guy]

also why dont you just edit the first post with the list rather than post the list in latter post, more people will see it

done and done.

 

[MCAT guy]

The LIST

• House of God
• The Art of War
• Everybody Poops
• Forgive and Remember by Charles Bosk
• The Making of a Surgeon by Dr. William Nolen
• Intern by Doctor X (Alan Nourse)
• Journey Round My Skull by Frigyes Karinthy
• Complications
• Clinical Pathophysiology Made Ridiculously Simple
• How Doctors Think, by Groopman
• The Anatomy of Hope: How People Prevail in the Face of Illness, by Groopman
• INTERNAL BLEEDING: The Truth Behind America's Terrifying Epidemic of Medical Mistakes, by Wachter and Shojania
• Walk on Water: The Miracle of Saving Children's Lives, by Ruhlman
• Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance, by Gawande
• King of Hearts: The True Story of the Maverick Who Pioneered Open Heart Surgery, by Miller
• The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
• Lost In America: A Journey with My Father
• Hot Lights, Cold Steel
• Blue Collar, Blue Scrubs
• Another Day In the Frontal Lobe
• Final Exam: A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality
• When the Air Hits Your Brain
• Eleven Blue Men
• America's Social Health by Marque-Luisa Miringgoff
• The Checklist Manifesto
• Body of Work - Meditations on Mortality from The Human Anatomy Lab
• Every Patient Tells a Story - Medical Mysteries and the Art of Diagnosis
• The Diagnosis of Acute Abdomen in Rhyme
• A Case of Need
• Walking out on the Boys by Francis Conley
• The Wisdom of the Body by Sherwin B. Nuland
• How We Die by Sherwin B. Nuland
• The Man who Mistook His Wife For a Hat by Oliver Sacks
• The Strange Case of The Walking Cadaver by Nancy Butcher
• Timeline by Michael Crichton
• The Intern Blues by Rober Marion
• Just Here Trying to Save a Few Lives
• The Scalpel and the SIlver Bear
• Health and Healing by Andrew Weil
• A Map of the Child by Darshak Sangavi
• Terminal by Robin Cook
• The Lost Art of Healing: Practicing Compassion in Medicine
• The Elegant Universe by Brain Greene
• Walk on Water: INside an Elite Pediatric Surgical Unit
• The Language of Cells: A Doctor and His Patients by Spencer Nadler
• Becoming a Doctor by melivin Konner
• The Ditchdigger's Daughters
• The Dressing Station by Jonathan Kaplan
• Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest for Dr. Paul Farmer
• Delivering Doctor Amelia: The Story of a Gifted Young Obstetrician's Mistake and the Psychologist who Helped Her
• Surviing the Extremes, A Doctor's Journey to the Limits of Human Endurance
• Travels and/or Five Patients by Michael Crichton
• Driving Mr. Albert by Michael Paterniti
• On Doctoring by Richard Reynolds
• The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
• The Ultimate Guide to Choosing a Medical Speciality by Brain Freeman
• Letters to a Young Doctor by Richard Selzer
• Pathologies of Power
• Kitchen Table Wisdom by Rachel Remen
• Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom by Christiane Northrup
• Tuesdays With Morrie
• King of Hearts: The True Story of the Maverick Who Pioneered Open Heart Surgery
• A Not Entirely Benign Procedure: Four Years as a Medical Student
• Young "what my Patients Taught Me"
• Forgive and Remember, Managing Medical Failure
• The Lassa Ward
• The Lazarus Case Life and Death Issues in Neonatal Intensive Care
• The Knife Man, The Extraordinary Life and Times of John Hunter
• Not All of Us are Saints, A Doctor's Journey with the Poor
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
• A Way of Life by William Osler
• Classic Cases in Medical Ethics, Gregory Pence
• A PhD is Not Enough, Peter Feibelman
• Doctor Stories, Carlos Williams
• Who Shall Live?, Victor Fuchs
• My Own Country, Abraham Verghese
• Confessions of a Knife, Richard Selzer
• When the Air Hits Your Brain, Frank Vertosick
• The Hot Zone, Richard Preston
• Virus Hunter: Thirty Years of Battling
• Hot Viruses Around the World, CJ Peters
• The Demon Under the Microscope, Thomas Hager
• The Great Influenza, John Barry
• The Ghost Map, Steven Johnson
• The Coming Plague, Laurie Garret
• The Constant Gardener, John LeCarre
• Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
• Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
• My stroke of insight by Jill Bolt
• movie "Something the Lord Made"
• The Short Guide to a Happy Life (Anna Quindlen)
• Worried Sick by Nortin Hadle
• Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers
• Sick by Jonathan Cohn
• the last lecture
• Improving your Bedside Manner by Jacquelyn Small
• Gifted Hands by Ben Carson
• Something for the Pain by Paul Austin
• Starcraft Ghost Nova
• Strength in what remains by Tracy Kidder
• Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder
• Pathologies of Power, written by Dr. Farmer
• Righteous Dopefiend by Philippe Bourgois
• In Search of Respect
• Twilight
• health care meltdown by lebow
• Extreme Clinic -- An Outpatient Doctor's Guide to the Perfect 7 Minute Visit
• The Emperor of All Maladies
• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks-Skloot
• Another Day in the Frontal Lope-Firlik
• My Hitch in Hell: The Bataan Death March by Lester I. Tenney
• Intern: A Doctor's Initiation by Sandeep Jauhar
• Just Here Trying to Save a Few Lives" by Pamela Grim, M.D.
• Tuesdays With Morri
• A Lesson Before Dyin
• http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...a_fact_gawande (letting go)
• Becoming a Better Doctor by Dr. Al Notre
• "Kill as Few Patients as Possible: And 56 Other Essays on How to Be the World's Best Doctor" by Oscar London
• From Voodoo to Viagra, also from Oscar London
  • Amazon preview has the first essay
• Final Exam
• Survival of the Sickest by Sharon Moalem
• A Fortunate Man: The Story of a Country Doctor by John Berge
• Cheating Death by Sanjay Gupta
• Cheating Death by Sanjay Gupta
• Night Shift by Brian Goldman
• What I learned in medical school--collection of short essays
  Becoming a Doctor by Melvin Konner
• the 48 laws of power ~ Robert Greene
• The Art of Seduction ~ Robert Greene
• The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care. By T. R. Reid
• Millions Saved: Proven Successes In Global Health by Ruth Levine
• Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
• Deadly Spin by Wendell Potter
• Mushashi - Book of 5 Rings
• Martin Buber - I and Thou
• Kierkegaard - The Sickness Unto Death
• Castiglione - the Book of the Courtier
• Overdosed America
• The Illness Narratives by physician/anthropologist Arthur Kleinman
• Your Critically Ill Child: Life and Death Choices Parents Must Face by Christopher Johnson MD
• The Scalpel and the Soul by Allan Hamilton MD
• Saving Sammy by Beth Allison Maloney
• Doctors - by Erich Segal
• Final Diagnosis - by Arthur Hailey

 

[MCAT guy]

I may have to make a "Vote for 10 books" and create a SDN book ranking thread.

 

[blehm98]

[*]Twilight

that made me laugh during a silent moment in class like a complete idiot lol

 

[Torr]

This is soo my new favorite thread on SDN. Thank you MCAT guy!
Didn't know this existed.

I've gone blank and can't think of something you MUST read as a pre-med. I'll say Salman Rushdie's book "Midnight's Children" is a good read. It's an experience (cheesy I know).

 

[ICD 3]

A Country Doctors Notebook by Mikhail Bulgakov

It's not published in the US anymore but UK amazon has it, I found my used copy for a couple bucks.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Country-Doctors-Notebook-Mikhail-Bulgakov/dp/1860461654

Imagine finishing medical school and then being immediately posted to a rural office, the next closest physician being 30 miles away and you have no phone/internet and horse. Your responsibilities include everything from delivering babies to treating Syphilis to performing amputations and you live in northern Russia.

 

[startswithb]

I just finished reading Hot Lights, Cold Steel by Michael Collins, MD. It's about his life in an orthopedic surgery residency at the Mayo Clinic. I enjoyed it. Very fast read. He does a lot of soul-searching as he tries to sort out all the emotional trauma he sees. Now I'm interested in ortho.

 

[LizzyM]

A Country Doctors Notebook by Mikhail Bulgakov

It's not published in the US anymore but UK amazon has it, I found my used copy for a couple bucks.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Country-Doctors-Notebook-Mikhail-Bulgakov/dp/1860461654

Imagine finishing medical school and then being immediately posted to a rural office, the next closest physician being 30 miles away and you have no phone/internet and horse. Your responsibilities include everything from delivering babies to treating Syphilis to performing amputations and you live in northern Russia.

The flip side is Manhattan Country Doctor by Milton Slocum, a private practioner in NYC from 1934-1968.

Here's a review:
http://litmed.med.nyu.edu/Annotation?action=view&annid=12271

 

[MicroBrewer87]

Overdiagnosed: Making people sick in the pursuit of health by Welch, Schwartz and Woloshin

SDN had a feature a few weeks ago about the topic. I had been reading the book before that feature came out, but I didn't see it make this list yet. The book has some fantastic information.

 

[meithelion]

Here's a good one: it's funny and exposes a lot about Medicine, too.

Things I Wish I Knew Before Becoming an M.D. by C.P. Shnell

 

[ladybug1122]

This is an amazing thread! I haven't had time to read a good book since this busy semester started, and this thread has a wide selection of books. I personally love historical fiction books, but I'm going to give these a go .

 

[anonymitas]

Surgery of the Soul: Reflections on a Curious Career
by Joseph Murray - recipient of the 1990 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

 

[MonicaMelquiade]

Saturday by Ian McEwan - it's a novel detailing a day in the life of a neurosurgeon. I read it a really long time ago, but I found it extremely fascinating, and I won't spoil it for anyone, but it's not a boring day.

 

[GooseWing]

bumping because it's summer! and we finally have free time to read again

EDIT: Oh! Just ordered Emperor of All Maladies and The Healing of America.
Maybe I'll give them quick reviews once I'm all finished.

 

[Velour Fog]

Bump.

Any new suggestions/reviews?

 

[ManBroDude]

How is Art of War #2?!

We need a ranking system. Or better yet (since this is all subjective anyhow), how about something like "if you like __x__, then you'll enjoy __y__"?

 

[JESSFALLING]

I really enjoyed "Caring for the Country: Family Doctors in Small Rural Towns". It's a great read if you'd like to get a feel for how modern rural practices run.

 

[jayhawkjbc]

I realize this is an older thread, but oh well. I just recently read Hot Lights, Cold Steel.... I found that it was really enjoyable and actually motivated me to study harder. Anyone have a similar experience with any book?

 

[Instatewaiter]

Harrisons