Meghan O’Rourke — The Invisible Kingdom (Book Review)
First, Meghan O’Rourke bares her soul about chronic illness in her 2022 book, The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness. And second, she analyzes how US medical care fails patients with difficult to diagnose chronic illnesses. This is two parts...Jonathan M. Metzl — Dying of Whiteness (Book Review)
Jonathan M. Metzl began researching his 2019 book Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment Is Killing America’s Heartland after the Affordable Care Act (ACA) passed. As a physician, he wondered why people who benefited from the insurance and health...Anne Fadiman — The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down (Book Review)
Author Anne Fadiman combines multiple narratives in her fabulous ethnography The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures. Most importantly, it’s both an immigration and a medical story of one Hmong...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...Book Review: Doing Harm by Maya Dusenberry
Maya Dusenberry compiles and analyzes a boat load of important information in Doing Harm: The Truth About How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick. Now you know her theme—the way women suffer because of misogyny and prejudicial...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....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...Book Review: No Apparent Distress by Rachel Pearson, MD
In No Apparent Distress, Rachel Pearson writes a riveting account of her time in medical school. She’s especially focused on her work at a student-run charity medical clinic in Galveston, TX. Given everything happening these days along the Texas border, it’s even more...Book Review: Elderhood by Louise Aronson
Louise Aronson subtitles Elderhood with the following: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life. I submit that she focuses primarily on the second of these topics, rather than the other two. And that makes sense because she has many years of...Book Review: An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back by Elisabeth Rosenthal
If healthcare in the United States frustrates you, An American Sickness: How Healthcare Became Big Business and How You Can Take It Back by Elisabeth Rosenthal is the book for you. It alternately made me furious, sad, and empowered me to ask a thousand more questions...Book Review: The Education of a Coroner: Lessons in Investigating Death by John Bateson
Reading John Bateson’s book, The Education of a Coroner: Lessons in Investigating Death, is like reading a very grim tabloid. No gossipy or gory detail is spared, which sometimes felt overwhelming to me. But I like CSI-type shows and this was like binge watching...Book Review: Your Medical Mind: How to Decide What is Right for You by Jerome Groopman, MD and Pamela Hartzband, MD
I found Jerome Groopman’s book How Doctors Think helpful and enlightening. So when I happened across Your Medical Mind: How to Decide What is Right for You, written by Groopman and his wife Pamela Hartzband (both are MDs) I grabbed it right up. In truth, I also...Book Review: When the Air Hits Your Brain by Frank T. Vertosick, Jr., MD
In When the Air Hits Your Brain: Tales of Neurosurgery, Frank T. Vertosick, Jr., MD tells of his life as a neurosurgeon. Starting with the “grunt work” required of a med student who accidentally starts his clinical experience in neurosurgery, and ending...Book Review: The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients’ Lives by Theresa Brown
I read The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients Lives by Theresa Brown, RN as an audiobook. I love listening to memoirs, since it feels like I’m having a long, albeit one-sided, conversation with a new friend. This is a peek into one oncology...Book Review: Lyme Madness by Lori Dennis
Lori Dennis’ impassioned book, Lyme Madness, is the work of an unintentional activist. I picked it up expecting a detailed medical memoir about Dennis’ son Matt’s struggle with Lyme Disease. In fact, I’d guess that barely ten percent of the...Bookshop.Org Affiliate
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