Book picks similar to
A Fly on the Ward by Michael K. Chapman
medical
memoir
reviewed-books
confessions
From the Eye of the Hurricane
Alex Higgins - 2007
In 1972 he became the youngest winner of the World Championship, repeating his victory in emotional style in 1982.Higgins's story is so much more than just snooker. Head-butting tournament officials, threatening to shoot team-mates, getting involved with gangsters, abusing referees, affairs with glamorous women, frequent fines and lengthy bans, all contributed to Higgins slipping down the rankings as he succumbed to drink and lost his fortune. After suffering throat cancer, Alex Higgins now reflects on his turbulent life and career in his first full autobiography. The Hurricane is back - prepare to be caught up in the carnage.
Beautiful Ever After
Katie Piper - 2014
In this powerful sequel to her bestselling memoir, Katie tells the remarkable story of what's happened in the years since she bravely left the safety of her parents' home. With her trademark honesty, humour and heartfelt emotion, Katie shares the highs and lows she has faced as her life changed in ways she never thought possible. She reveals the dark thoughts and genuine fears she continues to overcome behind closed doors, and the realities, both physical and emotional, of her ongoing, painful recovery.Katie is now a successful charity campaigner, TV presenter and inspirational speaker, but her career highs have often brought her face-to-face with her biggest demons. Her story is still dark at times, but it will also delight and surprise; despite fears of a life alone, she has found her Prince Charming, and Katie reveals both the wonder and anxiety of becoming a mother. This is the no-holds-barred, witty and utterly engaging next chapter in the life of a remarkable young woman.
Captives among the Indians: Firsthand Narratives of Indian Wars, Customs, Tortures, and Habits of Life in Colonial Times
Horace Kephart - 2015
This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Back on Top: Confessions of a High-Class Escort
Samantha X. - 2017
and much, much more!BACK ON TOP is fast-paced and occasionally outrageous, told with the flair readers loved in HOOKED. Samantha X does not hold back when it comes men, love, sex - and getting herself back on top.
Confessions of a Surgeon: The Good, the Bad, and the Complicated...Life Behind the O.R. Doors
Paul A. Ruggieri - 2012
Paul A. Ruggieri has seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of his profession. In Confessions of a Surgeon, he pushes open the doors of the O.R. and reveals the inscrutable place where lives are improved, saved, and sometimes lost. He shares the successes, failures, remarkable advances, and camaraderie that make it exciting. He uncovers the truth about the abusive, exhaustive training and the arduous devotion of his old-school education. He explores the twenty-four-hour challenges that come from patients and their loved ones; the ethics of saving the lives of repugnant criminals; the hot-button issues of healthcare, lawsuits, and reimbursements; and the true cost of running a private practice. And he explains the influence of the white coat code of silence and why patients may never know what really transpires during surgery. Ultimately, Dr. Ruggieri lays bare an occupation that to most is as mysterious and unfamiliar as it is misunderstood. His account is passionate, illuminating, and often shocking-an eye-opening, never- before-seen look at real life, and death, in the O.R.
No Easy Road
Patsy Whyte - 2009
When you're a lonely six-year-old, you don't really understand what that means. All you know is you're happy to have a friend to play with.Patsy Whyte caught glimpses of an invisible world growing up in a children's home in Aberdeen. One of a family of ten traveller children, torn apart by the state in the 1950's, Patsy recalls a childhood scarred by years of mental and emotional abuse, prejudice and hatred.Patsy left the home at the age of 15, angry, naive and ill-prepared, but with a will to survive which would be tested to the limit. She rubbed shoulders with the rich and powerful and the poorest in the land, and drifted into a world of violence, prostitution and drugs which almost claimed her life.More than anything, No Easy Road is a testament to the survival of the human spirit.
Natural Killer: A Memoir
Harriet Alida Lye - 2020
There are no known survivors. There were no known survivors.Fifteen years after Harriet's diagnosis, she became pregnant, despite having been told that her chemotherapy treatment would likely make conception impossible. To be a mother is to make a death, as death is bound up in life. She knew her body had the ability to create death. She never trusted, was told to not even imagine, that it also had the power, that magical banality, to create life.Weaving in source material from the year she spent in hospital, written by both of her parents and her teenage self, this personal reflection is told through a seamless blend of narrative, snapshots, journal entries, and blog updates posted for friends and family.With probing lyricism and searing honesty, Natural Killer explores what it's like to live with a life-threatening illness and survive it; what it means for a body to turn against itself, to self-destruct from within; and what it takes to regain trust in a body that has committed the ultimate betrayal.
Life on a Knife’s Edge: A Brain Surgeon’s Reflections on Life, Loss and Survival
Rahul Jandial - 2021
He followed his head over his gut and Karina was left permanently paralysed, altering both patient and surgeon's lives for ever. This decision would haunt Rahul for decades, a constant reminder of the fine line between saving and damaging a life.As one of the world's leading brain surgeons, Rahul is the last hope for patients with extreme forms of cancer. In treating them, he has observed humanity at its most raw and most robust. He has journeyed to unimaginable extremes with them, guiding them through the darkest moments of their lives.Life on a Knife's Edge is Rahul's beautifully written account of the resilience, courage and belief he has witnessed in his patients, and the lessons about human nature he has learned from them. It is about the impossible choices he has to make, and the fateful consequences he is forced to live with.From challenging the ethics of surgical practices, to helping a patient with locked-in syndrome communicate her dying wish to her family, Rahul shares his extraordinary experiences, revealing the depths of a surgeon's psyche that is continuously pushed to its limits.
Of Time and Memory: My Parents' Love Story
Don J. Snyder - 1999
All his life Don had been too shy, too deeply pained to ask his father or grandparents to tell him the story of the lovely girl named Peggy Snyder--what delighted or troubled her, who her friends were, how she fell in love, what cut short her brief life.But then, nearing his fiftieth birthday and compelled by his father's failing health, Snyder embarked on a quest to find his mother. He traveled many times from his home in Maine down to his mother's small Pennsylvania town to trace her childhood and adolescence. He tracked down Peggy's high school friends, spent time with her teachers, probed the memories of the girls--now elderly women-- who had been her bridesmaids. Detail by detail, Don pieced together the harrowing story of Peggy's final year--her passionate love affair with her husband, the unexpected pregnancy, the sudden illness that consumed her, and the impossible choice she was forced to make.A heartbreaking, overwhelmingly beautiful book, Of Time and Memory is a story of remembering--and reclaiming--the fragile mystery of a beloved life.
The Good Nurse: A True Story of Medicine, Madness, and Murder
Charles Graeber - 2013
But Cullen was no mercy killer, nor was he a simple monster. He was a favorite son, husband, beloved father, best friend, and celebrated caregiver. Implicated in the deaths of as many as 300 patients, he was also perhaps the most prolific serial killer in American history.Cullen's murderous career in the world's most trusted profession spanned sixteen years and nine hospitals across New Jersey and Pennsylvania. When, in March of 2006, Charles Cullen was marched from his final sentencing in an Allentown, Pennsylvania, courthouse into a waiting police van, it seemed certain that the chilling secrets of his life, career, and capture would disappear with him. Now, in a riveting piece of investigative journalism nearly ten years in the making, journalist Charles Graeber presents the whole story for the first time. Based on hundreds of pages of previously unseen police records, interviews, wire-tap recordings and videotapes, as well as exclusive jailhouse conversations with Cullen himself and the confidential informant who helped bring him down, THE GOOD NURSE weaves an urgent, terrifying tale of murder, friendship, and betrayal.Graeber's portrait of Cullen depicts a surprisingly intelligent and complicated young man whose promising career was overwhelmed by his compulsion to kill, and whose shy demeanor masked a twisted interior life hidden even to his family and friends. Were it not for the hardboiled, unrelenting work of two former Newark homicide detectives racing to put together the pieces of Cullen's professional past, and a fellow nurse willing to put everything at risk, including her job and the safety of her children, there's no telling how many more lives could have been lost.In the tradition of In Cold Blood, THE GOOD NURSE does more than chronicle Cullen's deadly career and the breathless efforts to stop him; it paints an incredibly vivid portrait of madness and offers a penetrating look inside America's medical system. Harrowing and irresistibly paced, this book will make you look at medicine, hospitals, and the people who work in them, in an entirely different way.
District Nurse
Patricia Jordan - 1977
She leaves behind a close-knit family and a failed romance in Ireland to begin training in Barnet and Middlesex. She early on treats a patient who eventually becomes her husband and means that she accepts a job in the north of England that takes her first by bicycle and then in an unreliable little car, into the homes of the people who need her care. In DISTRICT NURSE, she brings to life everyone she encounters, from the doctors and other nurses to the diverse and always compelling patients. It is a captivating personal account of a life spent helping others.
Monica: From Fear To Victory
Monica Seles - 1996
Along with the story of her triumphant comeback, after being stabbed by a deranged Steffi Graf fan, Seles provides readers with an insider's glimpse of big-time international tennis. of photos.
Mind That Child: A Medical Memoir
Simon Rowley - 2018
There are always parents to help through an incredible journey . . . I am, I know, a very lucky man.’Leading paediatrician Dr Simon Rowley has committed almost all of his working life to the care and wellbeing of children. In Mind That Child, Rowley provides a rare glimpse into what it means to be entrusted with the most precious of responsibilities – a young human life. Charting his decades of medical experience, Rowley touches on an array of issues, from the high-stakes management of tiny pre-term babies to the serious impacts of drugs, alcohol and technology on developing minds. Real-life cases and practical advice are interwoven throughout a candid, compassionate narrative.What’s revealed is a tender and profound portrait of a medical professional at the very centre of what matters – a doctor who always adopts a humane, holistic view and who writes openly about the personal impact of a career in medicine. A must-read for any parent and a wonderful insight into the high-pressure medical world.
Dude, Where's my Stethoscope
Donovan Gray - 2012
The adventure begins during the author's formative years in medical school and takes the reader through two decades of thought-provoking rural and urban-based ER and family practice experiences. Humorously written in an engaging mash-up of formal prose and informal medical slang with a nod to pop culture and ancient mythology, Dude is a powerful book that is certain to please readers of all stripes.
Lummox: The Evolution of a Man
Mike Magnuson - 2002
When a mysterious phantom enters his life, he sets himself on a quest to discover the true meaning of lummoxness, and what he learns along the way is both shocking and hilarious.Written with honesty and selfeffacing wry humor, Lummox is an exceptional story of manhood at a time of its redefinition, a book that will leave you laughing out loud in recognition and cheering for lummoxes everywhere.