The Language of Kindness: A Nurse's Story


Christie Watson - 2018
    She takes us by her side down hospital corridors to visit the wards and meet her unforgettable patients.In the neonatal unit, premature babies fight for their lives, hovering at the very edge of survival, like tiny Emmanuel, wrapped up in a sandwich bag. On the cancer wards, the nurses administer chemotherapy and, long after the medicine stops working, something more important--which Watson learns to recognize when her own father is dying of cancer. In the pediatric intensive care unit, the nurses wash the hair of a little girl to remove the smell of smoke from the house fire. The emergency room is overcrowded as ever, with waves of alcohol and drug addicted patients as well as patients like Betty, a widow suffering chest pain, frail and alone. And the stories of the geriatric ward--Gladys and older patients like her--show the plight of the most vulnerable members of our society.

The Unfit Heiress: The Tragic Life and Scandalous Sterilization of Ann Cooper Hewitt


Audrey Clare Farley - 2021
    This alarmed authorities, who feared certain "over-sexed" women could destroy civilization if allowed to reproduce and pass on their defects. Set against this backdrop, The Unfit Heiress chronicles the fight for inheritance, both genetic and monetary, between Ann Cooper Hewitt and her mother Maryon.In 1934, aided by a California eugenics law, the socialite Maryon Cooper Hewitt had her "promiscuous" daughter declared feebleminded and sterilized without her knowledge. She did this to deprive Ann of millions of dollars from her father's estate, which contained a child-bearing stipulation. When a sensational court case ensued, the American public was captivated. So were eugenicists, who saw an opportunity to restrict reproductive rights in America for decades to come.

Intensive Care: A Doctor's Journey


Danielle Ofri - 2013
    Her vivid prose brings the reader into bustling hospitals, tense exam rooms, and Ofri's own life, giving an up-close look at the fast-paced, life-and-death drama of becoming a doctor. She tells of a young man uncertain of his future who comes into the clinic with a stomach complaint but for whom Dr. Ofri sees that the most useful "treatment" she can offer him is SAT tutoring. She writes of a desperate struggle to communicate with a critically ill patient who only speaks Mandarin, of a doctor whose experience in the NICU leaves her paralyzed with PTSD, and of her own struggles with the fear of making fatal errors, the dangers of overconfidence, and the impossible attempts to balance the empathy necessary for good care with the distance necessary for self-preservation. Through these stories of her patients, colleagues, and her own experiences, Intensive Care offers poignant insight into the medical world, and into the hearts and minds of doctors and their patients. These stories are drawn from the author’s previous books and one is from her forthcoming book, What Doctors Feel: How Emotions Affect the Practice of Medicine.excerpted from Amazon.com Book Description

Call Me Sister: District Nursing Tales from the Swinging Sixties


Jane Yeadon - 2013
    Staff nursing in a ward where she's challenged by an inventory driven ward sister, she reckons it's time to swap such trivialities for life as a district nurse.Independent thinking is one thing, but Jane's about to find that the drama on district can demand instant reaction; and without hospital back up, she's usually the one having to provide it. She meets a rich cast of patients all determined to follow their own individual star, and goes to Edinburgh where Queen Victoria's Jubilee Institute's nurse training is considered the cr me de la cr me of the district nursing world.Call Me Sister recalls Jane's challenging and often hilarious route to realizing her own particular dream.

Before Ebola: Dispatches from a Deadly Outbreak (Kindle Single)


Peter Apps - 2014
    The year is 2005. A highly infectious, unidentified Ebola-like virus is sweeping through the slums and villages of northern Angola. Within months, more than 200 people have died, medical services have collapsed and aid workers are on the brink of exhaustion. At 23, Peter Apps was just starting out as a foreign correspondent when Reuters sent him into the heart of the outbreak to get the story. In “Before Ebola: Dispatches from a Deadly Outbreak” Apps recalls in vivid, unflinching detail the horrors of life in a hot zone, the compassion of those trying to contain it, and how a terrified young journalist came of age in a time of almost unbearable crisis. Peter Apps is a global defense correspondent for Reuters news, currently dividing his time between London and Washington, D.C. In September 2006, Apps broke his neck in a minibus crash while covering the Sri Lankan civil war, leaving him largely paralyzed from the shoulders down. Cover design by Kristen Radtke.

The Angina Monologues: stories of surgery for broken hearts


Samer Nashef - 2019
    Nashef tells heart-stopping stories of transplants, bypasses, coronary artery repair, and cardiac arrest. He also delivers humane advice about medical realities rarely observed: the futility of obsessing over diet, the necessity of calculating risks, the role of decision making, the resilience of doctor and patient alike, and the threadbare brilliance of the NHS.Nashef is a magnificently warm and likeable doctor and writer; and he has the best imaginable bedside manner.

Paramedico: Around the World by Ambulance


Benjamin Gilmour - 2011
    From England to Mexico, and Iceland to Pakistan, Gilmour takes us on an extraordinary thrill-ride with his wild coworkers. Along the way he learns a few things, too, and shows us not only how precious life truly is, but how to passionately embrace it.

The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women


Kate Moore - 2017
    From body lotion to tonic water, the popular new element shines bright in the otherwise dark years of the First World War.Meanwhile, hundreds of girls toil amidst the glowing dust of the radium-dial factories. The glittering chemical covers their bodies from head to toe; they light up the night like industrious fireflies. With such a coveted job, these "shining girls" are the luckiest alive—until they begin to fall mysteriously ill.But the factories that once offered golden opportunities are now ignoring all claims of the gruesome side effects, and the women's cries of corruption. And as the fatal poison of the radium takes hold, the brave shining girls find themselves embroiled in one of the biggest scandals of America's early 20th century, and in a groundbreaking battle for workers' rights that will echo for centuries to come.Written with a sparkling voice and breakneck pace, The Radium Girls fully illuminates the inspiring young women exposed to the "wonder" substance of radium, and their awe-inspiring strength in the face of almost impossible circumstances. Their courage and tenacity led to life-changing regulations, research into nuclear bombing, and ultimately saved hundreds of thousands of lives.

Ghost Boy: My Miraculous Escape from a Life Locked Inside My Own Body


Martin Pistorius - 2011
    But he was alive and trapped inside his own body for ten years.In January 1988 Martin Pistorius, aged twelve, fell inexplicably sick. First he lost his voice and stopped eating. Then he slept constantly and shunned human contact. Doctors were mystified. Within eighteen months he was mute and wheelchair-bound. Martin's parents were told an unknown degenerative disease left him with the mind of a baby and less than two years to live.Martin was moved to care centers for severely disabled children. The stress and heartache shook his parents’ marriage and their family to the core. Their boy was gone. Or so they thought.Ghost Boy is the heart-wrenching story of one boy’s return to life through the power of love and faith. In these pages, readers see a parent’s resilience, the consequences of misdiagnosis, abuse at the hands of cruel caretakers, and the unthinkable duration of Martin’s mental alertness betrayed by his lifeless body.We also see a life reclaimed—a business created, a new love kindled—all from a wheelchair. Martin's emergence from his own darkness invites us to celebrate our own lives and fight for a better life for others.

50 Years in the OR: True Stories of Life, Loss, and Laughter While Giving Anesthesia


Ronald Whitchurch - 2020
    

A Map of the Child: A Pediatrician's Tour of the Body


Darshak Sanghavi - 2003
    . . Sanghavi is a vivid and effortless teller of human tales and quite evidently a special doctor, too." —Atul Gawande, author of ComplicationsIn this compelling book, Dr. Darshak Sanghavi takes the reader on a dramatic tour of a child's eight vital organs, beginning with the lungs and proceeding through the heart, blood, bones, brain, skin, gonads, and gut.Along the way, we meet children and families in extraordinary circumstances—a premature baby named Adam Flax who was born with undeveloped lungs, a teenage boy with a positive pregnancy test, and a young girl who keeps losing weight despite her voracious appetite. In a deeply personal narrative, Sanghavi provides a richly detailed—and humanized—portrait of how the pediatric body functions in both sickness and health.

Violence. Speed. Momentum.


Dr. DisRespect - 2021
    Wow. Too much energy. Wow. Too much anticipation. WOW. It’s the new memoir from the biggest star in gaming: Dr Disrespect.Dr Disrespect is a 6-foot-8 freak of nature with a 37-inch vertical, the two-time, back-to-back 1993-94 Blockbuster Video Game Champion, and in his factual opinion, the most dominant international gaming superstar in the history of the world. It was just a matter of time before Western civilization came begging Doc to save literature by writing a memoir that reads like a vicious, muscular lion clawing his way through the rocks, roaring in anger and dominance. Here you will find his deepest, most intimate secrets. The untold history of his mysterious, legendary origins and his rise to unparalleled dominance. And most of all, you will find out what, exactly, Doc’s a doctor of. Are you ready for a book with the rhythm of a sleazy ’70s muscleman and the ruthlessness of a ’90s serial killer? A journey that stares down the long, dark alley of your fears and never looks back? Does your warrior’s heart yearn to reach the tippity top of the mountain just to realize you’re still only halfway up? If so, firm handshakes, Champion: Welcome to the salvation of literature.

Case Files: Surgery


Eugene C. Toy - 2003
    Each case includes an extended discussion, definition of terms, clinical pearls, and USMLE format review questions. This interactive learning system helps you understand essential concepts instead of memorizing facts.

Preserving Patients: Anecdotes of a Junior Doctor


Tom Parsons - 2017
    From being the saviour of a man’s anus to being mistaken for the milkman, Tom describes the complexity and absurdity of today’s medical practice with humour and aplomb. Tom is a junior doctor working in the National Health Service. Tom Parsons is a pseudonym. * Amazon/Kindle/Fiction/Medical, March 2018

Your Birthday Book: A Keepsake Journal


Amy Krouse Rosenthal - 2007
    It’s a birthday book! It was born from the simple idea that birthdays provide the perfect annual opportunity to preserve a sweet moment in time as your child changes from year to year. So it’s a multi-layered confection: annual touchstone, cherished ritual, and eternal keepsake. This journal provides fun, fast, and casual birthday activities for ages 1-18 as well as space to stick birthday photos and a random picture from each year, amusing and thought-provoking questions to ask your kid, and a time-capsule envelope for stashing away odds and ends (artwork, school papers, hand tracings, birthday cards, invitations, and other memorabilia).From toddler hood to young adulthood to every hood in between, you’ll return to the same four activities for each birthday. The questions prompts, and tone may shift each year, but the essence intentionally remains intact.