Favorite Books

[sanityonleave]

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Ladies and Gents,

I just finished reading Hot Lights, Cold Steel for the third time (it was as good as the first two), and I thought it would be sort of interesting to see -- what are you guys' favorite books about medicine?

A short list of my all-time favorites:

Hot Lights, Cold Steel
Hope in Hell
An Imperfect Offering
Hippocrates' Shadow

As sort of a side-theme to the thread, what books about medicine did you really not like for their content/portrayal/whatever? My only strong dislike would be Intern by Sandeep Jauhar -- I felt like he really just hated medicine and spent the whole book talking about how awful it was.

Thoughts?

 

[Hoju]

I thought "Complications" by Atul Gawande and "When the Air Hits Your Brain" by Frank Vertosick were pretty good.

 

[VisionaryTics]

Neither are light reading, but Forgive and Remember as well as The Social Transformation of American Medicine should be required reading for medical professionals.

 

[MedicineMike]

'Hot lights, Cold steel' was REALLY good....The prequel 'Blue Collar, Blue Scrubs' was just as good/funny.

I just finished reading 'Complications', and 'Better.' They were ok.

Favorite book by far is 'When the Air hits your Brain' - it intrigues me on neurosurgery...

And of course the classic; 'The House of God'

 

[DrDrummer]

Neither are light reading, but Forgive and Remember as well as The Social Transformation of American Medicine should be required reading for medical professionals.

+1 on Paul Starr. I will have to check out Forgive and Remember. Looks pretty worthwhile.

 

[ThreadStalker]

Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder is my favorite. Also like Dr, Farmer's own writings in Partner to the Poor and Pathologies of Power, though they are a bit drier than Kidder's book.

 

[CatFactorial]

Guns, Germs, and Steel was offensively boring.