Medical Memoir
Michele Harper, M.D. — The Beauty in Breaking: A Memoir (Book Review)
Michele Harper, M.D. opens her heart in a memoir about her experiences in medicine, The Beauty in Breaking. But this book is more than that. It’s part meditation on finding herself amid divorce, moving to a new city, and finding peace in yoga and stillness. She’s also...
Ruther Coker Burks —All the Young Men: A Memoir of Love, AIDS, and Chosen Family in the American South (Book Review)
Ruth Coker Burks writes about her experiences caring for HIV/AIDS patients in All the Young Men: A Memoir of Love, AIDS, and Chosen Family in the American South. She wasn’t a nurse or other health care provider. She was just a young woman with a big heart and buckets...
Book Review: Attention, A Love Story by Casey Schwartz
Casey Schwartz writes a memoir and social history mash up in Attention, A Love Story. She’s a thirty-something woman who started using Adderal, a drug to treat ADHD, in college. But she took it without being diagnosed. It’s just one of those things college kids do,...
Book Review: From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death by Caitlin Doughty
If I’m going to read about death, let it be a book by Caitlin Doughty. And in this book, Doughty travels the world, investigating various death-related practices. She makes the topic fun, which obviously sounds different from how we typically perceive death. What I...
Book Review: Over-Diagnosed by H. Gilbert Welch, M.D.
Over-Diagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health is a physician researchers' perspective on the state of medical practice in the United States. It was published in 2011, so some of the information is dated. But the fundamental questions raised by H. Gilbert...
Book Review: One Doctor by Brendan Reilly
Dr. Brendan Reilly creates a gripping memoir, One Doctor, by balancing several elements. As a hospitalist, a doctor working strictly with patients admitted to hospital, he details individual cases. At the same time, he reflects on how the cases affect him beyond the...
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