Medical Biography

After over a decade of fighting chronic illness, trauma therapist and beloved author K.J. Ramsey was the healthiest she’d been in her life. She packed up her Jeep and set out on a summer of road trips, returning to the places where she first glimpsed joy as a kid. More than adventure, her aim was a personal dare to discover that joy is more trustworthy than trauma.

Senior ophthalmology student, Dr Hugh Ringland Taylor, was in the field with the National Trachoma and Eye Health Program with Professor Fred Hollows in the 1970s. Professor Hugh Ringland Taylor AC decided to change the course of his life in his late fifties, in 2006.

Over the course of 25 years in the ER, Dr. Reggie Duling has seen cases that have stuck with him for various reasons. Some are poignant, some tragic, and others hilarious. The ER is a bustling place filled with patients who seek expert emergency care while at their most vulnerable. From heart attacks to foreign bodies, Dr. Duling hasn't seen it all, but he has seen his share. ER Doc: Defining Moments of a Career in Emergency Medicine relays the humor and somber responsibility of being an emergency physician in the American healthcare system.

Whether offering insight into the rise in home births, the alarming rise in America’s maternal mortality rate, or the history of involuntary sterilization, Karkowsky offers a window into all that pregnancy, labor, and birth can entail - birth and joy, but also challenge and loss - illustrating the complexity of reproductive life and the systems that surround it. With historical insight and journalistic verve, Karkowsky unpacks what is involved for women, for a family, and for us as a society; and explores what’s at risk when these aspects of medicine remain clouded in mystery and misinformation.

In the aftermath of a shattering illness, Lonni Sue Johnson lives in a "perpetual now" where she has almost no memories of the past and a nearly complete inability to form new ones. The Perpetual Now is the moving story of this exceptional woman and the groundbreaking revelations about memory, learning, and consciousness her unique case has uncovered.

Dr. Steven Hatch first came to Liberia in November 2013 to work at a hospital in Monrovia. Six months later, several of the physicians Dr. Hatch had mentored and served with were dead or barely clinging to life, and Ebola had become a world health emergency. Hundreds of victims perished each week; whole families were destroyed in a matter of days; so many died so quickly that the culturally taboo practice of cremation had to be instituted to dispose of the bodies.

this exciting story illuminates the captivating world of the late Renaissance - in this case its plagues, remedies, and alchemy - through the life of Leonardo Fioravanti, a brilliant, remarkably forward-thinking, and utterly unconventional doctor. Fioravanti's marvelous cures and talent for self-aggrandizement earned him the adoration of the people, the scorn of the medical establishment, and a reputation as one of the age's most colorful, combative figures.

In his early 20s, Mindy Greiling's son, Jim, was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder after experiencing delusions that demanded he kill his mother. At the time, and for more than a decade after, Greiling was a Minnesota state legislator who struggled, along with her husband, to navigate and improve the state's inadequate mental health system. Fix What You Can is an illuminating and frank account of caring for a person with a mental illness, told by a parent and advocate.

Widely known today as the "Angel of the Battlefield", Clara Barton's personal life has always been shrouded in mystery. In Clara Barton, Professional Angel, Elizabeth Brown Pryor presents a biography of Barton that strips away the heroic exterior and reveals a complex and often trying woman. Based on the papers Clara Barton carefully saved over her lifetime, this biography is the first one to draw on these recorded thoughts. Not always altruistic, her accomplishments were nonetheless extraordinary.

In this deeply moving memoir, Dr. Bhaskar Bora recounts his life-changing journey through a spinal cord injury and a battle with cancer. I Died Standing Still is a raw and powerful story of resilience, courage, and transformation. More than a personal narrative, it is a testament to the human spirit’s ability to rise from adversity and find meaning, creativity, and hope in the darkest times.

In the final stretch of his doctoral internship, Dr. Jonathan Mathias Lassiter had just one more milestone to complete: the diversity project, where candidates insert themselves into a situation in which they'd experience what it’s like to be a minority. Surprisingly, the all-white training committee failed him! They concluded that the only Black intern did not understand diversity. Frustrated and panicked, he thought: “These white people are crazy."

As if juggling a life with half-a-dozen kids, including triplets, isn’t enough, Steve Tate receives the life-altering news that one of his triplets, Hayes, has been diagnosed with brain cancer. The once-star collegiate football player finds himself fighting for his son’s life. This memoir takes you through the various challenges he faced raising a family of six kids and balancing a career, all while his son battled the odds. Both Steve and his high-school sweetheart, Savanna, found hope and happiness through the example of their 20-month-old son Hayes.

When former New York Times journalist Dan Koeppel texted his cousin Robert Meyer, a 20-year veteran of the emergency room at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis in the United States, he expected to hear that things were hectic. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being overwhelmed, where do you think you are? Koeppel asked. Meyer’s grave reply - 100 - was merely the cusp of the crisis that would soon touch every part of the globe.

In the early 2000s, 16-year-old Todd Davison and his older brother Wade were living the Canadian hockey dream—playing together in the Western Hockey League, a stepping-stone for many future NHL stars. Todd seemed destined to be one of them. But after facing off against Sidney Crosby at the Canada Winter Games in 2003, that dream became a nightmare when Todd's mysterious shoulder pain led to a devastating cancer diagnosis. His Last Shift: The Playbook of Todd Davison recounts the journey of an incredible young man as he comes to terms with his death long before his time.

Eva Hagberg Fisher spent her lonely youth looking everywhere for connection: drugs, alcohol, therapists, boyfriends, girlfriends. Sometimes she found it, but always temporarily. Then, at age 30, an undiscovered mass in her brain ruptured. So did her life. A brain surgery marked only the beginning of a long journey, and when her illness hit a critical stage, it forced her to finally admit the long suppressed truth: she was vulnerable, she needed help, and she longed to grow. She needed true friendship for the first time.

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.

For a long time, when people asked Dr. Meera Shah what she did, she would tell them she was a doctor and leave it at that. "I'm an abortion provider," she will now say. And an interesting thing started to happen each time she met someone new. One by one, people would confide that in fact they'd had an abortion themselves. And the refrain was often the same: You're the only one I've told. This book collects those stories as they've been told to Shah to humanize abortion and to combat myths that persist in the discourse that surrounds it.

Falling into the Fire is psychiatrist Christine Montross's thoughtful investigation of the gripping patient encounters that have challenged and deepened her practice. Beautifully written, deeply felt, Falling into the Fire brings us inside the doctor’s mind, illuminating the grave human costs of mental illness as well as the challenges of diagnosis and treatment. At once rigorous and meditative, Falling into the Fire is an intimate portrait of psychiatry, allowing the reader to witness the humanity of the practice and the enduring mysteries of the mind.

ALS is a deadly disease that didn't want to let go of me. I went from hope to planning my own death as a way of escaping this demon. My journey is a view into the life of a person who needs 24-hour care, never any privacy. I was given 18 months to get my affairs in order. That lead me to seeking a higher power than the doctors. I have never witnessed an energy healing until it happened to me. This book is my call to each of you and your family who are challenged by ALS. My frame of mind was my only power.

Sara appears to have everything it takes to be happy: a loving wife, a beautiful home, and a successful biotech career. But inside, she’s battling a perplexing, self-destructive impulse that has driven her to sabotage relationships—including her marriage.