Medical Biography

Some might wonder how Martha could have clung to hope at all. In 1948, on the day of the funeral of her adored older brother, Gaston, a quick victim of the great polio epidemic, Martha was struck with the same dreaded disease. After a year in polio hospitals, she was sent back to her home in the village of Lattimore in the cotton-growing hills of western North Carolina. She was completely paralyzed, with only her head protruding from an 800-pound yellow metal cylinder that breathed for her.

Are you looking for inspiration? Living is the inspiring true story of a father of seven facing cancer with grace.

Young Joy, who has been experiencing the stifling control of the Chinese government over the lofty ambitions of university students like herself to study abroad, has just realized that the forces amassed against her won't budge a millimeter despite her efforts to work within the system. So Joy initiates a complex series of daring scenarios to beat the legal system at its own game in order to secure her exit visa to the United States. And she does: transforming herself into the Tiger of Beijing. Calculated. Intuitive. Fierce.

Is it cancer or just a bad pixel? Talking to Skeletons chronicles seven extraordinary nights Jourdan spent shadowing a radiologist in a teaching hospital. Told with the wit and warmth that have earned Jourdan five national best sellers, this book paints an insightful portrait of one man's life and work. It's a uniquely personal tour of a private world that, as a bonus, gives listeners an intimate peek at how Jourdan creates her best-selling medical narratives. In essence, it is a biography, and at the same time, a lovely and intelligent medical selfie.

These are the extraordinary realities of the NHS front line. From the historic junior doctor strikes to the 'humanitarian crisis' declared by the Red Cross, the overstretched health service is on the precipice. This is a powerful polemic on its systematic degradation and a letter of optimism to that same health service and those who support it. It captures with tenderness a new doctor's experiences of an NHS at breaking point.

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR USA TODAY BOOK CLUB PICK ONE OF AUDIBLE'S BEST BIOS AND MEMOIRS OF 2023 “A raw, intimate look at [Hendrickson's] life with a stutter. It’s a profoundly moving book that will reshape the way you think about people living with this condition...

These heartwarming and inspiring stories by brave women and men who have survived breast cancer are a must-listen for anyone personally or indirectly afflicted by the disease. How We Beat Breast Cancer brings together the experiences, thoughts, struggles, and victories of unique women and men from all walks of life, who tell the stories of their battles with breast cancer. Their narratives portray both the good and the bad in a real, candid language, sharing everything from diagnosis, through treatment, to life with and after cancer.

Dresden 1893: Der ehrgeizige Jurist Dr. Daniel Paul Schreber erleidet nach einer beruflichen Beförderung einen Nervenzusammenbruch. Im darauffolgenden stationären Aufenthalt entwirft Schreber eine Erklärungsschrift, welche seine Mündigkeit wiederherstellen soll und liefert damit ein umfangreiches, unmittelbares Zeugnis eines an paranoider Schizophrenie Erkrankten.

Researchers spend most of their time mired in the "messy middle" of science, the opposite of a Eureka moment. It is these hidden stories that science journalist Roberta Kwok uncovers in Lost in Curiosity. The word "science" often brings to mind the image of a lone genius struck with a brilliant...

The Work of Human Hands is a timeless medical journey through pioneering surgeon Dr. Hardy Hendren's legendary operating room that the Los Angeles Times called "impossible to forget". Set at Boston Children's Hospital, which U.S. News & World Report consistently rates as America's best children's hospital, The Work of Human Hands is available now for the first time in audio. The new edition includes a fresh introduction and a greatly expanded epilogue updating readers on Hendren and patient Lucy Moore today.

Kinder gives us a gripping and raw insight into the life of a first responder, an opportunity to see through an invaluable lens that few will ever experience first hand. More importantly, it’s a story of hope and redemption.

New Year's Eve 2020 was supposed to be a turning point to better days for twenty-nine-year-old Katie Coleman. Instead, she found herself in the ER processing the earth-shattering news of a stage IV cancer diagnosis, one that had come after years of being assured she was "too young for cancer" and a repeated misdiagnosis of anxiety. Too Young for Cancer tells the story of Katie's journey from diagnosis with an ultra-rare cancer through treatment, recovery, and a life-altering shift in perspective.

Does your blood pressure surge if the car in front of you turns without signaling? Do your neck veins pulsate when a cashier takes too long to ring you up? Does relaxing seem like it'll have to wait until you're dead? Then your name could very well be Brian Frazer. On paper, Frazer is the world's healthiest guy. He eats right, exercises regularly, gets plenty of sleep, has never smoked and has missed only one day of flossing in the last five years. But inside he's a swirling vortex of angst, capable of contracting a new malady every month.

Author of Do No Harm and a memoir titled Admissions, both of which became Sunday Times best sellers, Marsh has documented his career as a neurosurgeon. He spent two decades as senior consultant at St George’s hospital in London, one of the countries largest specialist units for neurosurgery, as well as travelling to Ukraine, Nepal and the United States of America to perform surgeries. Since retiring from full-time work at the NHS, Marsh has been undergoing treatment after receiving a diagnosis of advanced prostate cancer.

In 2004, doctors discovered that Carmen Rice had a stage 4 glioblastoma multiforme brain tumor, one of the deadliest of all cancers—the same cancer which killed John McCain, Edward Kennedy, and Beau Biden. After being diagnosed with a glioblastoma tumor, 29-year-old Brittany Maynard made headline news when she moved to Oregon to die with dignity. Carmen's doctor gave her six months to live, but with her faith in God and tenacious spirit, Carmen just kept beating the odds. They Call Me "The Miracle" is her story.

Freedom 55? The so-called “Golden Years”? What if you are slowly losing your memories and your motor skills? Or what if you are the devastated witness as your partner struggles with dementia? Lewy Body Disease is a form of dementia second only to Alzheimer’s in numbers, yet many doctors and almost no lay people have ever heard its name. This is the story of two courageous people, Julie and Ken Sobol, life partners as well as writing partners. Caught up in the frightening and fatal fog of Lewy Body Disease, they started writing this book together.

On March 14, 1889, Susan La Flesche received her medical degree - becoming the first Native American doctor in US history. She earned her degree 31 years before women could vote and 35 years before Indians could become citizens in their own country. This is the story of an Indian woman who effectively became the chief of an entrenched patriarchal tribe, the story of a woman who crashed through thick walls of ethnic, racial, and gender prejudice and then spent the rest of her life using a unique bicultural identity to improve the lot of her people.

Ma vie a basculé une nuit où tout semblait pourtant si calme. La bête s’est glissée dans mon corps et ne m’a plus laissé une journée de répit. Il a fallu attendre des années pour, qu’enfin, on puisse poser un nom sur cette pathologie : l’algie vasculaire de la face. Les médecins la surnomment « la maladie du suicide » et comparent l’intensité de sa douleur à une amputation sans anesthésie. Ne pouvant me résoudre à vivre avec cette douleur insoutenable, j’ai tout essayé, faisant souvent même office de cobaye.

Two families came together in the waiting room of a Denver hospital on May 11, 2004, to await kidney transplants for loved ones. In the first operation, Gregg Farber, 32, a real estate executive, donated a kidney to his father, Steve, a 60-year-old Denver lawyer and power broker. In the second, Guatemalan refugee and landscaper Ernesto Delaroca, also 32, donated a kidney to his sister Sandra, 19, a restaurant worker.

In April of 2004, the long downward spiraling of Amy Bingaman's mental illness could no longer be hidden or ignored much less written off as a side-product of a colorful and quirky character. With no family able to help and no resources, she was involuntarily locked up in the draconian, archaic labyrinth that is the Wyoming Mental Health System. Armed with only a pocket dictionary and any paper she could find to write on, Amy wrote not only as a journal but at times as her only coping mechanism to salvage what was left of a breaking mind in a love/hate relationship with her alter-ego.