Out of curiosity

[MDPhD]

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What medical or scientific books have you guys enjoyed reading in your free time? Any buy any physician scientists? I am interested in what you guys are reading these days.

Thanks,

 

[football56]

[.

 

[hardy]

My free time consists of reading the following journals:
[...]
You can say it is not possible for a person to read so much scientific literature, but I do.

well, then you have a lot of free time!

 

[Ecthgar]

My free time consists of reading the following journals: Science, Cell, Nature, Nature Genetics, Neuroscience, Nature Neuroscience, Nature Genetics Review, Oncogene, Nature Neuroscience Review, Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, Nature Molecular Biology Review, Human Mutation, Clinical Genetics, The American Journal of Human Genetics, American Journal of Medical Genetics, Journal of Medical Genetics, PNAS, Nature Cell Biology, PLOS, PLOS Genetics, BMC Genetics, BMC Molecular Biology, BMC Medical Genetics, Cell Metabolism, Blood, Clinical Dysmorphology, Human Genetics, Genetics, Molecular Cell, Molecular Biology of the Cell, Molecular Cell Biology, Nucleic Acids Research, RNA, EMBO, Genes to Cell, Development Growth and Differentiation, Genome Research, Faculty 1000 Journal Article Reviews, JBC, European Journal of Human Genetics, Journal of Immunogenetics, Genetical research, Genetics in Medicine, Human Molecular Genetics, Journal of Human Genetics, Human Genetics, and Genetics and Development.

The only books I read are textbooks that are required for classes. I’m currently in the process of developing a research project that deals with p53-I will be first author. I am in collaboration with a person from Iran. I live in the United States. I will be a sophomore this fall semester. My major is Biology (emphasis in Medical Sciences) and a minor in Genetics. I am developing this project in collaboration with the other person from Iran. We have not had any expert help in our design. We have already passed our first defense with our project design. Now we just have to finalize our design and then we can work on the project in the labs we have already set for ourselves. My project design could be a huge breakthrough in cancer research.

You can say it is not possible for a person to read so much scientific literature, but I do.

Dude, you need to find yourself a woman or a hobby....or both. And trust me, there is no way you read that many journals and get anything out of it. I'm a 4th year MD/PhD student and I read maybe 10-15% of that list....maybe. If you really are reading that much, you're going to burn out really fast.

 

[Reimat]

trust me, there is no way you read that many journals and get anything out of it.

So true. But good luck on the research proj.

 

[Reimat]

Some very interesting books I've read in the past: Selfish Gene by Dawkins, I enjoyed Genome by Ridley, the Blank Slate by Pinker, Seven Sins of Memory by Schacter, Complications by Gawande, Five Patients by Crichton. The first 4 being more science-based, while the last 2 are about medicine. None of those books are too pop-sciency, but none that are as dry as reading papers 🙂 .

Currently I'm working through Semantic Cognition: A PDP approach by McClelland, and hope to get to Brain-wise: Studies in Neurophilosophy by Churchland. But, I find it's good to throw in some good fiction every once in a while. I've been told I should read the Tipping Point by Gladwell- anyone here read it?

 

[football56]

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[Ecthgar]

This is a classic example of an idiotic and jealous response. I hope you know a good scientist is not judgmental like your response was.

Do I have a girlfriend? Yes, I will have been dating my girlfriend for three years in September and I am also engaged to her (getting married in three summers in July). Do I have a hobby? Well, do you call taking walks, working out, cooking, listening to music and being a huge football fan count as hobbies?

And yes I do read all of those journals I listed. I also browse other journals that I did not list. I don’t read every research article in the journals. How many articles I read in each issue of the journals depends on the research papers that are published in each issue. It also helps to be an avid reader of AOP in the Nature journals, PNAS, JBC, Journal of Medical Genetics, American Journal of Medical Genetics, and PLOS.

I don’t care how many journals you or what percentage of journals you read compared to me. It was a simple response to the addressed question.

There are plenty of scientists who read a lot more literature then I do and there are plenty of scientists who don’t read as much literature as I do. But that is not the point of this thread.

No I won’t burn out because I know enough to take a couple of days off from reading the literature and do other things. I also know enough to take a couple of minute breaks between reading each journal article. I also know enough to take a week off from reading any journal article now and then.

Next time don’t show so much jealousy in your response. Other scientists will be able to pick up on a person who is jealous very easily.

You should have asked what I do to keep myself from becoming burned out. You also should have asked what my hobbies are and if I have significant other.

You left out one of your more obvious hobbies......mental masturbation. What the hell kind of response do you expect when you get on this forum and post nonsense like that?? Its like the people who post stuff like "I only got a 240 on step 1....guess I'll never get that ortho spot at Hopkins". You immaturity is gleaming.

I am actually jealous of you by the way.......I remember how care-free and easy life was when I was just some jackass undergrad sophmore who thgought he ruled the world. If you ever make it past med school interviews with that attitude of yours, you're going to get a hard dose of reality my friend. Good luck to you.

 

[hardy]

Next time don’t show so much jealousy in your response. Other scientists will be able to pick up on a person who is jealous very easily.

No. If you make a ridiculous claim, like consistenly reading 43 journals, then it is a scientists responsibility to doubt this. After all we are in the business of doubting things and not just believing what some random person claims.
A day only has 24 hours and this applies to you as well. The time you spend reading journals has to come from somewhere, so if you read all the journals it is obvious that some other part of your life will be lacking.

 

[Reimat]

This is a classic example of an idiotic and jealous response. I hope you know a good scientist is not judgmental like your response was.

Next time don’t show so much jealousy in your response. Other scientists will be able to pick up on a person who is jealous very easily.

Woah football, calm down. First of all you're not even a sophomore while Ecthgar is at least 7-8 years ahead of you on the academic track. Have you done research fulltime for even a summer yet? Because if you have, you'll realize there is not enough time in a day to read that much, do 8-10 hours of research, and have a well-rounded personal life (unless you give up sleeping). Listing your accomplishments modestly is a good thing- that is part of what the forum is for. Bragging about how you're going to change the history of cancer research as a sophomore in college is going to annoy a lot of people who have worked really hard to get where they are.

 

[hardy]

Bragging about how you're going to change the history of cancer research as a sophomore in college is going to annoy a lot of people who have worked really hard to get where they are.

Not only that but most people know that 99.99% of research is not going to be groundbreaking stuff and know that the potential for failure in a high-gain project is extremely big. I find it a little disturbing how somebody can be so convinced about their abilities that they make such claims.

 

[pseudoknot]

Relax, football56 is an obvious troll. Don't let him get under your skin...

 

[Thundrstorm]

Well, I spend all of MY free time reading Glamour Marie Claire Jane Cosmopolitan CosmoUK Elle ElleGirl Vogue Italian Vogue TeenVogue Seventeen CosmoGirl TeenPeople US Weekly Life&Style TeenBeat People Highlights American Girl PlayBoy (for the articles) and Scientific American if I want something really intellectual and technical. 😀


I’m collaborating with a colleague in New Jersey and we’re conducting research on which colorstay lipstick has the best durability and shine. We’ve already submitted our manuscript to several top publications.

 

[mjs]

Top Ten in Science:
The 8th Day of Creation by Horace Freeland Judson: This book is awesome but very long. It surprises me that so many molecular biologists have not read it.
The Double Helix by JD Watson
Advice To A Young Scientist by P. Medewar
The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins. Very long.
The Common Thread by John Sulston - the writing is not brilliant, but Sulston is a very thoughtful and extraordinary person and his career in science reflects that.
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman - funny, brief and works on a lot of levels.
What is Life? by Erwin Schrodinger
Zen and the Brain by James Austin - a very thoughtful neurologist explains his experiences sitting zazen. Also very long.
Anything Stephen Jay Gould wrote early in his career.
Godel Escher and Bach - playful, pretentious and fantastic for any bookworm with a background in science. Also very long.

Science Textbooks worth owning or bookmarking:
Principles of Neural Science
The Molecular Biology of the Cell
Robbins' Pathologic Basis of Disease


On Medicine:
Atul Gawande's essays (many available online or in Complications)
The House of God by Samual Shem (don't read the sequel).
A Time to Heal by Ludmerer
UpToDate.com

 

[mjs]

Also, I have read Gladwell's Tipping Point and it is the hot jam, but still not top ten-worthy. I literally wring my hands in anticipation of a paperback release of blink.

 

[beary]

Well, I spend all of MY free time reading Glamour Marie Claire Jane Cosmopolitan CosmoUK Elle ElleGirl Vogue Italian Vogue TeenVogue Seventeen CosmoGirl TeenPeople US Weekly Life&Style TeenBeat People Highlights American Girl PlayBoy (for the articles) and Scientific American if I want something really intellectual and technical. 😀

Awesome!!!

That's pretty much my reading list too. In Touch has some really informative articles too, especially about what's going on with Nick and Jessica. 😎

 

[Reimat]

Also, I have read Gladwell's Tipping Point and it is the hot jam, but still not top ten-worthy. I literally wring my hands in anticipation of a paperback release of blink.

Awesome, thank- I'll have to get a copy to read

 

[gaganheim]

Anything Stephen Jay Gould wrote early in his career.

Bully for Brontosaurus is my personal favorite.

 

[imsotired]

Well, I spend all of MY free time reading Glamour Marie Claire Jane Cosmopolitan CosmoUK Elle ElleGirl Vogue Italian Vogue TeenVogue Seventeen CosmoGirl TeenPeople US Weekly Life&Style TeenBeat People Highlights American Girl PlayBoy (for the articles) and Scientific American if I want something really intellectual and technical. 😀


I’m collaborating with a colleague in New Jersey and we’re conducting research on which colorstay lipstick has the best durability and shine. We’ve already submitted our manuscript to several top publications.

US Weekly is the BEST!! 😀

 

[_ian]

Not only do I peruse 900 journals, but I read only while walking to and from class, uphill both ways. I will cure cancer within the year, because I am first author on a paper, work with people in Iran, and am of such extraordinary intelligence that I need to wear special hats to prevent my brain from inflating my skull to gargantuan proportions. However, I don't bother with literature, 'cause I'm too busy curing cancer for that crap.

Furthermore, I have a twelve inch penis.

Post summarized.

 

[Doctor&Geek]

Recent books I've read: Accelerando, Metaplanetary, Superluminal, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect

My truly free time consists of perusing (as opposed to reading every word, folks!) Foreign Affairs, Wikipedia, and whatever interesting blogs I can gather before completely blowing sleep time.

Please, in the future I'd actually like to get to have colleagues who live on Earth and not some ivory tower. The amount of scientific reading past a certain level just isn't efficient for inspiration.

 

[Thundrstorm]

Post summarized.

Special hat!



In all seriousness, for scientific writing, Carl Sagan is awesome. So is the book Stiff.. For medical topics, I really enjoyed Complications and I'm currently reading Mountains Beyond Mountains, which is about the life of Paul Farmer, who opened a hospital in a very poor region of Haiti. It's good so far. For novels, Gregory Maguire is an awesome author. And Glamour and Marie Claire are seriously good magazines. Oh, and I suggest Lucky for fashion advice. 😀

 

[MDPhD]

The book about paul farmer and complications, they are really good.

MDPhD

 

[oasis786]

I'll also ditto Complications and Mountains Beyond Mountains. Another more "science-y" book I read a few months back is Racing to the Beginning of the Road: The Search for the Origin of Cancer, by Robert Weinberg. Fantastic history of cancer research...who did what, how our thinking about cancer has evolved, etc. It's actually much more interesting than it sounds. Only read I've found of its kind, and it really made me appreciate how far we've come in our thinking about the biology of cancer...

 

[lynnier79]

Just started my MD/PhD program this summer, so i still have a little free time. i spend most of it climbing or mountain biking at the moment, because thats what you do when you live in utah!

anyway, im not sure i have seem the following books on the list yet, and I'm sure some of them are pretty well read. I dont claim any are top 10 necessarily, but I enjoyed them:

Singular Intimacies (good for when you dont have much time, because it's short stories/essay) by Ofri
Lives of a Cell -- Lewis Thomas
Shelter from the Storm -- Joanne Hilden
White Coat -- Ellen Lerner Rothman
House of G-d -- Samuel Shem

and of course I too read Glamour, Cosmo, Marie Claire, Elle, W, Outside, Rock and Ice, Climbing, Couloir, and Backcountry. I think I value that more than the books, actually.