Summer reading before starting? (NOT textbooks...)

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Excited to start medical school at a decent place in the midwest

getting geared up and ready to move, but also looking for book recommendations

Not textbooks. I imagine I'll have plenty of reading on the to-do list this fall :p But more fun, beach readin' stuff.

thoughts? Mostly looking for good non-fiction or interesting fiction. Can be medical or otherwise.

What are y'all readin?

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Clifford the Big Red Dog


I'm not reading anything but I heard Atul Gawande's work is pretty good
 
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I’m partial to anything by Stephen King. The Outsider is really good, though it helps if you’ve read the Mr. Mercedes trilogy first. 11/22/63 is amazing. Revival is great too. He also has a new one out called Later that seems pretty interesting.
 
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Bump House of God.

Intern Blues by Robert Marion.
 
The laws are important!

I’ll save OP the trouble.

2902EABA-4D2B-40AD-90C8-07C8FDF1C5C4.jpeg


There. Now you don’t have to read that terrible book.
 
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Enjoy four years of punishment!

I've done a lot of reading this summer.

"The Hospital" by Brian Alexander. Non fic


Great book that details a small, midwest hospital trying to stay afloat while a bunch of corporations try to sink it. It's especially meaningful for me since I rotated there as a "community" rotation! Was surprised to see a book written about the place. All kinds of heinous stuff is in this. Like how orthopedic docs get volume pricing so a knee costs the hospital 10x what a hospital 45 minutes away would get charged since they do 10x as many knees. That makes zero sense to me. The reporter that wrote the book was "embedded" there for a few years so you get to watch it over time, including the start of covid. Good book to read if you're thinking about hospital admin/selling your soul.

"Flutter" by Millard Craft. Fiction.

It's about a medical student that struggles throughout med school until finally landing the best specialty, EM (what I'm in). I think it's more enjoyable to read as having left the meat grinder and not going into it though. It does have excellent scenes that are true to life, like a student that can regurgitate complicated mechanism of actions of drugs but not remember a basic patient interview. That killed me to read since I've seen it so many times as an attending.

Also I wouldn't look down on "house of god." It's a great book. Should be mandatory reading. It's old but still very applicable.

Good luck!

EDIT: apparently you can't link to amazon? weird
 
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“When Breath Becomes Air” by Paul Kalanithi
 
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Excited to start medical school at a decent place in the midwest

getting geared up and ready to move, but also looking for book recommendations

Not textbooks. I imagine I'll have plenty of reading on the to-do list this fall :p But more fun, beach readin' stuff.

thoughts? Mostly looking for good non-fiction or interesting fiction. Can be medical or otherwise.

What are y'all readin?

The Greatest Benefit to Mankind: A Medical History of Humanity by Roy Porter

 
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I’m partial to anything by Stephen King. The Outsider is really good, though it helps if you’ve read the Mr. Mercedes trilogy first. 11/22/63 is amazing. Revival is great too. He also has a new one out called Later that seems pretty interesting.

I've been a huge King fan my whole life. I'm a bigger fan of his earlier stuff--ie, Nightshift--but can appreciate Outsider. HBO adaptation was p good, too.

“When Breath Becomes Air” by Paul Kalanithi

Looks interesting! Ordering.

"Flutter" by Millard Craft. Fiction.
Will order this, too. EM is on my radar and a book about someone struggling and getting there might be inspirational :p

Ought to keep me occupied for a week or so. House of God I've already read. I'll probably re-read when I reach residency, I don't really remember much about it or the laws since I read it so long ago.
 
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x2 for when breath becomes Air.
Im also an Atul Gawande fan. being mortal, better, complications and checklist manifesto
 
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I’m partial to anything by Stephen King. The Outsider is really good, though it helps if you’ve read the Mr. Mercedes trilogy first. 11/22/63 is amazing. Revival is great too. He also has a new one out called Later that seems pretty interesting.
The Dark Tower was perhaps my favorite piece(s) of literature ever written. Truly his crowning achievement. I hope one day he decides to just dive back in and pick up on the alternate/extra ending and... just keep going.
 
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The Dark Tower was perhaps my favorite piece(s) of literature ever written. Truly his crowning achievement. I hope one day he decides to just dive back in and pick up on the alternate/extra ending and... just keep going.

Coincidentally, that’s my least favorite of his. Though it is good.
 
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I highly recommend avoiding medical topics entirely and indulging in a good mystery (Robert Galbraith or Val McDermid), fantasy (JK Rowling), YA (Rainbow Rowell) or chick-lit (Joshilyn Jackson, Liane Moriarty, or Elin Hilderbrand)
 
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If you’re looking for fantasy I’ve been really enjoying Brandon Sanderson lately.
 
Hanya Yanagihara - A Little Life (very sad)
Adam Kay - This is going to hurt (very funny)
Anything by Malcolm Gladwell. I recently read "Talking to strangers"
+1 for the already mentioned When Breath Becomes Air
 
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Seeing Stephen King fans here makes me happy! He’s my favorite author, hands down. I’ll be the weirdo and claim Duma Key for my favorite - I think I’ve read it at least 10 times.

Justin Cronin’s The Passage trilogy - The Passage, The Twelve, and The City of Mirrors are other favorites and may be a good way to fill the rest of your time depending on your reading speed. They’re a little lengthy.
 
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Don’t read medical stuff! Go to the beach and read James Patterson thrillers or something!
 
Also, “PiHKAL” and then “TiHKAL” by Alex (Sasha) and Ann Schulgin.

Just don’t try any of the recipes - don’t think school would like it.
 
Excited to start medical school at a decent place in the midwest

getting geared up and ready to move, but also looking for book recommendations

Not textbooks. I imagine I'll have plenty of reading on the to-do list this fall :p But more fun, beach readin' stuff.

thoughts? Mostly looking for good non-fiction or interesting fiction. Can be medical or otherwise.

What are y'all readin?
I enjoyed reading The Final Diagnosis, it's definitely a little dated but the book still stands.
 
Mystic River by Dennis Lehane

Just finished it, and what an absolutely amazing mystery book. Bleak and realistic. If you haven’t seen the movie first, worth a read.

If you want something more medical and non-fiction, Do No Harm by Henry Marsh was a great read as well.
 
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Harrison's. I don't consider it a textbook but more of a casual or light summer read.

On a serious note, here are some fun options:

The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson. Bryson is a humorist and writer. It's very light, fun, and witty.

Clinical Pathophysiology Made Ridiculously Simple by Aaron Berkowitz. If, for some inexplicable reason, you actually want to learn some medicine before med school, this book is at least light enough of a read that it shouldn't be too mentally taxing. Berkowitz is a neurologist at B&W's, one of the Harvard hospitals.

The Deadly Dinner Party: And Other Medical Detective Stories by Jonathan Edlow. Edlow is an internist as well as an emergency physician at BIDM, one of the Harvard hospitals. The book is in the vein of Sherlock Holmes (and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a physician and based Sherlock Holmes partly on one of his med school professors, Joseph Bell).

Extreme Medicine: How Exploration Transformed Medicine in the Twentieth Century by Kevin Fong. Fong is an anesthesiologist and critical care physician based in the UK. He's an expert in space medicine.

The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic - And How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson. All about John Snow and the cholera outbreak in Soho, London. And epidemiology. Johnson is a journalist and popular science writer.

The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth: And Other Curiosities in the History of Medicine by Thomas Morris. Morris is a journalist and medical historian.

Operations That Made History by Harold Ellis. Title says it all. Ellis is a retired British surgeon.
 
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Harrison's. I don't consider it a textbook but more of a casual or light summer read.

On a serious note, here are some fun options:

The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson. Bryson is a humorist and writer. It's very light, fun, and witty.

Clinical Pathophysiology Made Ridiculously Simple by Aaron Berkowitz. If, for some inexplicable reason, you actually want to learn some medicine before med school, this book is at least light enough of a read that it shouldn't be too mentally taxing. Berkowitz is a neurologist at B&W's, one of the Harvard hospitals.

The Deadly Dinner Party: And Other Medical Detective Stories by Jonathan Edlow. Edlow is an internist as well as an emergency physician at BIDM, one of the Harvard hospitals. The book is in the vein of Sherlock Holmes (and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a physician and based Sherlock Holmes partly on one of his med school professors, Joseph Bell).

Extreme Medicine: How Exploration Transformed Medicine in the Twentieth Century by Kevin Fong. Fong is an anesthesiologist and critical care physician based in the UK. He's an expert in space medicine.

The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic - And How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World by Steven Johnson. All about John Snow and the cholera outbreak in Soho, London. And epidemiology. Johnson is a journalist and popular science writer.

The Mystery of the Exploding Teeth: And Other Curiosities in the History of Medicine by Thomas Morris. Morris is a journalist and medical historian.

Operations That Made History by Harold Ellis. Title says it all. Ellis is a retired British surgeon.
If you’re into the medical mystery stuff I highly recommend chubbyemu on YouTube


I’m reading Empire of Pain right now. Fascinating book about how the opioid epidemic came to be, and the pharmaceutical industry as a whole.
 
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Also just finished When Breath Becomes Air and it is definitely a thought-provoking read that was hard to put down.

I’m also on a personal journey to read literature from different countries around the world so some books I read this summer:

I am Malala was a well-done autobiography. The way she tells her story while informing the reader of the historical and political context is impressive.

Also read The Hairdresser of Harare (about a newly hired hotshot male hairdresser who makes the protagonist, also a hairdresser, jealous in the workplace until she learns that he has a secret) and Black Mamba Boy (in which the author writes about his father’s journey of migrating from Yemen/Somalia to Britain). Finished both within a day or 2 because they were so gripping.
 
Excited to start medical school at a decent place in the midwest

getting geared up and ready to move, but also looking for book recommendations

Not textbooks. I imagine I'll have plenty of reading on the to-do list this fall :p But more fun, beach readin' stuff.

thoughts? Mostly looking for good non-fiction or interesting fiction. Can be medical or otherwise.

What are y'all readin?
In my 4th year dental school.
Applying to Oral Maxillofacial Surgery now

I would read When Breath Becomes Air
or
watch Boards n Beyond/ Sketchy Micro vids 😇🤣
 
Excited to start medical school at a decent place in the midwest

getting geared up and ready to move, but also looking for book recommendations

Not textbooks. I imagine I'll have plenty of reading on the to-do list this fall :p But more fun, beach readin' stuff.

thoughts? Mostly looking for good non-fiction or interesting fiction. Can be medical or otherwise.

What are y'all readin?
If you want medicine, The Cole Trilogy - Noah Gordon. Well written historical fiction about 3 different eras of medicine. From 1000 AD Persia to Native American shamanism.
Also the Red Blanket by John Harch about his USC surgical training is hilariously horrifying. But it may be your last chance to read non medical books for a long time.
 
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Some entirely escapist fare:
Little by Edward Carey
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
Searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok (loved the audio book)

You will pray for escape:
Horror Stories by Liz Phair (non-fiction)
The Stand by Stephen King (I didn't get all the way through but the pandemic at the beginning is chilling)
Just Mercy by Bryan Stephenson (non-fiction)
 
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If you haven’t already, “When Breath Becomes Air” by Paul Kalanithi is probably the best book I’ve ever read. It’s a must-read for anyone going into medicine, especially those are are drawn to what gives life meaning especially amid the hardest parts of life,

otherwise, I will also support the rec for “Price we Pay” by Marty Makary.
 
A place for us by Fatima farheen mirza

the alchemist by Paulo coelho
Manuscript found in Accra also by Paulo coelho

some of the ones I started the summer with
 
It’s supposed to be satirical, but it’s super unnecessarily explicit. And the writing is just bad.
And it has not aged well. It is well over 40 years old and the delivery of health care has changed significantly in that time.

That said, human nature hasn't changed and some of it is still funny, and yet raunchy, too.
 
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Excited to start medical school at a decent place in the midwest

getting geared up and ready to move, but also looking for book recommendations

Not textbooks. I imagine I'll have plenty of reading on the to-do list this fall :p But more fun, beach readin' stuff.

thoughts? Mostly looking for good non-fiction or interesting fiction. Can be medical or otherwise.

What are y'all readin?
Any book written by Nelson DeMille
 
The Secret Handshake: Mastering the Politics of the Business Inner Circle by Kathleen Reardon. It's a book of anecdotes from business executives on navigating office politics and achieving goals in a professional setting. It sounds like a boring topic but the excerpts can be quite amusing and clever, and a lot bring up good points for operating in "the real world."

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Carnegie and The Prince by Machiavelli are also musts for anyone entering the professional world.
 
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If you’re into the medical mystery stuff I highly recommend chubbyemu on YouTube


I’m reading Empire of Pain right now. Fascinating book about how the opioid epidemic came to be, and the pharmaceutical industry as a whole.
I like Chubbyemu too. He basically turns case reports into videos. He comes at it as a pharmacist which is another interesting perspective to have:

chubbyemu.jpg


Source
 
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Prob some financial books so u can get a good idea of how much of a sucker we are in this field as we get bought up and abused by medical admin/ private equity groups.
 
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The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman. It's fascinating.
 
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