Top 5 Medical Memoirs

I love all kinds of books, but I devour medical memoir.  It feels like talking life with my future peers, friends, and self.  So, I thought I’d compile a list of my top 5 medical memoirs :

Where I read in Wyoming

5) Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance by Atul Gawande, 288 pg

“People underestimate the importance of diligence as a virtue.  No doubt this has something to do with how supremely mundane it seems.”

One Sentence Summary – Intangibles that are important in medicine. 

Gawande is a believer in intangibles, and Better is about the intangibles crucial for medicine – including diligence, personableness, and honesty.  He tells anecdotes of historical medical accomplishments like the polio vaccine, and of current medical struggles like getting doctors to wash their hands.

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4) Intern: A Doctor’s Initiation by Sandeep Jauhar, 320 pg

“That guy on the boat, looking up at the hospital.  Do you know what that guy is thinking?  I should have been a doctor.”

One Sentence Summary – Sometimes hilarious/always honest account of internship.

"I should have been a doctor."

Jauhar, a former physics PhD student that changed paths to medicine, chronicles his internship year at a NYC hospital.  Rather than describing all his great doctoring moments, he takes an introspective look at his struggles with medicine.  It was refreshing to see that a real life doctor still has doubts.

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3) The Tennis Partner by Abraham Verghese, 368 pg

“Within your secrets lies your sickness.”

One Sentence Summary – A ode to a friendship between two struggling men. 

Verghese also wrote an NYT bestselling novel, Cutting for Stone,  and works at Stanford Med as an advocate of the doctor-patient relationship.  Previously, he worked in El Paso, where he bonded with his co-worker, David, over a shared love of tennis.  Verghese was going through a divorce and David was recovering from a drug addiction, so they both relied on their relationship to anchor their unstable lives.  Verghese’s sharp understanding of human emotions is impressive. 

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2) Walk on Water: Inside an Elite Pediatric Surgical Unit by Michael Ruhlman, 340 pg

“You cannot lie in this work.  There are so many people in this world who have no idea who the fuck they are.”

One Sentence Summary – Psychoanalysis of peds cardiac surgeons in the pursuit of greatness. 

Road to greatness?

Ruhlman, a journalist, spends a hectic year following a pediatric cardiac surgery team.  Peds cardiac surgeons fit the surgery stereotype to a T - they know nobody else can do what they do, and that lives depend on their hands.  He really studies the personalities that make up the team, and figures out what makes them tick.

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1) Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World by Paul Farmer/Tracy Kidder, 352 pg

“I’m going to build my own fucking hospital.  And there’ll be none of that there, thank you.”

One Sentence Summary – inspirational read of doctor in Haiti.

Farmer is a doctor bringing healthcare to rural Haiti.  I am forever indebted to Mountains, a book that gave me an idol. 

I struggle with the tensions of a Kobe-like competitive edge with my desire to help people, and in Farmer I saw an idol that balanced those tensions.  He’s painted as a selfless demigod, but I saw a cocky young doctor that fed off the rest of the world doubting him.  He believes it is his individual responsibility to save Haiti.  

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So anyways, that’s my top 5.  Let me know if you’ve read any good ones.  I’m currently reading Samuel Shem’s House of God. 

See you on the other side,

from ken