Medical Memoir

Porochista Khakpour spends much of her book, Sick: A Memoir, talking about relationships. Sometimes it’s her parents or girlfriends. But more often it’s the men in her life. I’ve seen reviewers bemoan this. But here’s what I think.  A single young woman, battling...

Thomas Hager writes a compelling medical and scientific history in The Demon Under the Microscope. Subtitled From Battlefield Hospitals to Nazi Labs, One Doctor’s Heroic Search for the World’s First Miracle Drug, its scope is incredibly wide. This book is the perfect...

Abby Norman tells her often harrowing story with grace in Ask Me About My Uterus. She’s had to make her way through life in pain, and mostly alone. I’m in awe of her courage and fortitude! Norman spent her childhood with an absent father, and a functionally absent...

Karen Duffy’s second book, Backbone: Living with Chronic Pain Without Turning into One, is meant to be a funny and motivational read. Duffy has certainly lived through more days of illness and pain than not. And she has some celebrity cred which adds a bit to the...

If you’ve ever used the bright blue or green mouthwash with the antiseptic taste, then you have benefitted from the expertise of Joseph Lister. More importantly, if you’ve had surgery in a spotlessly clean operating room with a surgeon gowned and gloved up, you owe...