SDN premed bookclub

[Climberak]

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I know premeds are busy with school and their MCATs, but surely they must read sometime! For those of you that do, do you recommend any books for anyone considering a career in medicine?

Mine: The Coming Plague by Laurie Garrett. This is a bit of a scary book, but it puts a fascinating spin on public health. Reading this book can make one very humble about infectious disease. She uses true accounts to show how unprepared the U.S. is for any kind of severe outbreak. If anyone is considering tropical medicine, this is a must read!

 

[taponthecloud]

The Coming Plague was written like 13 years ago...

 

[amph119]

prey by michael crichton. It is sci-fi genius.

edit- it has nothing to do with medicine really, I just thought it needed a plug.

 

[Climberak]

Age doesn't determine the merit of a book.

 

[1956Goldtop]

anything vonnegut!

 

[nhtreehugger]

oryx and crake - margaret atwood
thousand splendid suns - khaled hosseini

I think both these books have been out for awhile, but I have failed to find any 2008 books that I'd want to read multiple times

EDIT: lol I just realized that the OP was asking for something relevant to medicine. The abovementioned aren't too relevant, but my UCSD interviewer and I discussed the first one for quite awhile (I got in). Oryx and Crake play into the genetic engineering debate. The hosseini one shows how underserved women were during the taliban regime

 

[tiedyeddog]

When the Air Hits Your Brain - Frank Virtosick. Amazing.

 

[pride4jc727]

I just got two books in medicine from Borders the other day. One is called How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman. The other is Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance by Atul Gawande. Both are professors at Harvard Medical School. Has anybody read these books? Without giving the details of the book away, are the books as good as people say they really are?

 

[brogers]

I really enoyed "Better..." by Atul Gawande, as I found it to be very well written (kept me interested throughout the whole book) and had a lot of insightful info in it. He also has another book that I read and enjoyed greatly, though the name leaves me at the moment ("Complications" maybe?)

Enjoy

 

[butlerdogs]

Better was great...more or less a collection of Dr. Gawande's experiences and insights...an awesome read. I actually just picked up Complications (your memory serves you well brogers) and am looking forward to reading it as soon as I finish Hot Lights, Cold Steel by Dr. Mike Collins (a book similar to Dr. Gawande's, but set in Minnesota as this guy is a resident at Mayo in orthopedic surgery). If you guys want a really good read, pick up Intern by Dr. Sandeep Jauhar, especially if you have ever had second thoughts about your career path. The guy is a genius (earned his PhD in physics from Cal-Berkeley before deciding to go to WashU and finish his MD in three years) but doesn't know what he wants to do with his life until he finishes his residency...it's really funny and refreshing to hear from someone that hasn't wanted to be a physician since the day he/she was born.

On an unrelated note, grab "Gang Leader for a Day" by Sudhir Venkatesh...it has nothing to do with medicine, but a very interesting read nonetheless. The guy is a sociologist that essentially runs with a Chicago crack gang for a couple years. You won't be able to put it down.

 

[njbmd]

Read anything by Richard Selzer. My personal favorite is his 1994 book Taking the World in For Repairs. It is a series of short stories and quite similiar to his Confessions of the Knife. Selzer just sees the world with a wonderful love of humanity in addition to his marvel of what surgery does.

I also enjoyed First Cut: A Season in the Human Anatomy Lab by Albert Howard Carter. This short book follows a class of first-year medical students through their anatomy course. It's great reading.

 

[DoctorDreamer]

I have heard good things about several that I just bought (a couple of which are mentioned above):

"Intern: A Doctor's Initiation" by Sandeep Jauhar
"When the Air Hits Your Brain: Tales from Neurosurgery" by Frank Vertosick
"Hot Lights, Cold Steel: Life, Death and Sleepless Nights in a Surgeon's First Years" by Michael J. Collins

 

[teachmed27]

If anyone is interested in pediatrics, "A Map of the Child: A Pediatrician's Tour of the Body" by Darshak Sanghavi is pretty good.

 

[amm]

Wit: A Play by Margaret Edson. Pulitzer Prize winning play. Extremely powerful, full of emotions and wit. Less than 100 pages.

Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis, also good.

 

[A Wall]

I just got two books in medicine from Borders the other day. One is called How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman. The other is Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance by Atul Gawande. Both are professors at Harvard Medical School. Has anybody read these books? Without giving the details of the book away, are the books as good as people say they really are?

Better was spectacular, and Gawande really keeps your interest throughout. How Doctors Think was fine, but I really found myself having to force myself to read at some points, which is not what I generally go for in a book. I actually spoke about both of them at one interview, and my interviewer agreed with me on both counts, which reassured me that I probably wasn't just "not getting" Groopman's...

 

[pride4jc727]

Better was spectacular, and Gawande really keeps your interest throughout. How Doctors Think was fine, but I really found myself having to force myself to read at some points, which is not what I generally go for in a book. I actually spoke about both of them at one interview, and my interviewer agreed with me on both counts, which reassured me that I probably wasn't just "not getting" Groopman's...

Hey A Wall,

Thanks for giving me the lay of the land here. I just need to find free time, which isn't much these days, to read them. I started How Doctors Think by reading the Introduction and I was intrigued by the case of the woman with the perceived eating disorder and how the doctor who was consulted for the second opinion saw one crucial detail that was overlooked by the rest of the physicians who had previously treated her. So far, I like it.

As for Better, I haven't even touched it, but like I said, just need to find the time. I do feel from what you have said and the other posts, these book will be nice reads.

 

[Climberak]

I have Better too... I just need the time to read it.

Oh yeah, bump.

 

[ChubbyChaser]

"Hank the Cowdog", "the boxcar Children", and "goosebumps" These are all very intellectualy stimulating and I highly enjoy reading them.

 

[NC Doc]

"Hank the Cowdog", "the boxcar Children", and "goosebumps" These are all very intellectualy stimulating and I highly enjoy reading them.

Wow, amazing. You can tell a lot about someone just by knowknog that they've read Hank the Cowdog!

 

[Ella Shepherd]

I'm currently reading two books:

Love, Medicine and Miracles by Bernie Siegel, M.D.

and

The Client by John Grisham -- not exactly medically related but there's a part about traumatic shock


By the way, I'll be getting the Official SDN Guide to Med School book thingy in a couple of weeks. Anyone else getting it or has it? Just wondering...

 

[kronickm]

"World War Z" by Max Brooks (Mel Brooks' son)

 

[TheBlueBlazer]

"It's Not About The Bike: My Journey Back to Life" by Lance Armstrong. He discusses the way that cancer changed his life. Funny, for a second it made me wish I had cancer, so I could beat it. Then I realized that was dumb, but I do wish that I could have an experience that inspired me so much.