Medical Biography

One morning in 2008, desperate and impoverished while trying unsuccessfully to write, Davidson plucked a flyer out of his mailbox that read, "Bus Drivers Wanted". That was the first step toward an unlikely new career: driving a school bus full of special-needs kids for a year. Armed only with a sense of humor akin to that of his charges, a creative approach to the challenge of driving a large, awkward vehicle while corralling a rowdy gang of kids, and unexpected reserves of empathy, Davidson takes us along for the ride.

A holy man to Hindus, a hero to Muslims, and a criminal to the British, Mohandas K. Gandhi was an inspiring figure of the 20th century, a man whose quest to live in accord with God’s highest truth led him to initiate massive campaigns against racism, violence, and colonialism.

Chad shares the highs, the lows, and everything in between during his career as a paramedic, as well as the personal highs and lows. His stories highlight the dance between being fine, and burning out, as well as how the system fails to serve those who have dedicated their lives and careers to serving others.

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 this warm, witty, and inspiring memoir, Dr. Rhona Morrison shares how she navigated the twists and turns of her loss and subsequent reinvention, transforming her grief into opportunity. From launching an art business and writing her first book, I Don’t Talk to Dead Bodies, to becoming a cruise ship lecturer and embarking on global adventures, she tackled each step with an open heart. Along the way, she discovered unexpected joys, new passions, and a renewed sense of purpose.

Furiously Happy meets Elaine Lui in this truly original - and surprisingly hilarious - memoir about one woman’s journey to learn how to walk after a debilitating diagnosis turned her life upside down.Learn How to Walk (Again) To-Do List: Step 1: Stand, Step 2: Step, Step 3: Pee (Yes!), Step 4: Walk with walker, Step 5: Walk with sticks, Step 6: Walk without props Recreational interlude for sex Step, 7: RUN! Ruth Marshall - power-mom, wife, actor, and daughter - was in great health, until one day, her feet started to tingle.

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.

Stuart Jamieson's story is the story of four decades of advances in heart surgery. Taut, elegantly crafted, and ever-attentive to the patients for whom he was the last best chance, Close to the Sun is an adventurous, riveting account based on the experience of over 40,000 heart surgeries, where everything was on the line every moment in the O.R.

In the quarter century that Victoria Sweet has been a doctor, "health care" has replaced medicine, "providers" (vastly outnumbered by administrators) look at their laptops more than at their patients, and the ruthless pursuit of efficiency has vanquished not only trust and intimacy but also, often, the effectiveness of treatment. Victoria Sweet knows that there is an alternative way, because she has lived and practiced it. In her new book, she reflects with compassion, wit, and profound insight.

William Osler was one of the big four founding fathers of the Johns Hopkins Hospital and later became the Regis Professor of Medicine at Oxford. But this acclaimed physician was so much more. This is a remarkable story.

Families are riddled with untold secrets. But Stephen Hinshaw never imagined that a profound secret was kept under lock and key for 18 years within his family - that his father's mysterious absences, for months at a time, resulted from serious mental illness and involuntary hospitalizations. From the moment his father revealed the truth, during Hinshaw's first spring break from college, he knew his life would change forever.

In this sequel to Silent Siren: Memoirs of a Lifesaving Mortician, ride along with mortuary removal technician Matthew Franklin Sias as he cares for the deceased in rural Washington State. Step into the hidden world of death care and explore the challenge of removing the deceased from the often-difficult, regularly awkward, and sometimes downright bizarre circumstances in which they die, the art and science of embalming, and the intrigue of forensic pathology.

San Francisco's Laguna Honda Hospital is the last almshouse in the country, a descendant of the Hôtel-Dieu (God's hotel) that cared for the sick in the Middle Ages. Ballet dancers and rock musicians, professors and thieves - "anyone who had fallen, or, often, leapt, onto hard times" and needed extended medical care - ended up here. So did Victoria Sweet, who came for two months and stayed for 20 years. Laguna Honda, lower-tech but human-paced, gave Sweet the opportunity to practice a kind of attentive medicine that has almost vanished.

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.

"Enthralling. Harrowing. Heartbreaking. And utterly redemptive. Lindsey Fitzharris hit this one out of the park." —Erik Larson, author of The Splendid and the Vile Lindsey Fitzharris, the award-winning author of The Butchering Art, presents the compelling, true story of a visionary surgeon who...

The Headache Godfather traces the life of Seymour Diamond, MD, who was born in 1925, the son of Jewish immigrants from Ukraine and Slovakia, in Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Diamond revolutionized the practice of headache as a medical specialty when he opened the United States' first private headache practice, the Diamond Headache Clinic, in 1974. It quickly became a headache haven for sufferers from around the world.

Do you feel like your life is a series of shattered dreams? Have you bought into the lie that you'll never amount to anything? In Think Big, Dr. Ben Carson is here to tell you some good news: none of that is true.

After years of prosecuting hard-core criminals, rising legal star Alan Bell took a private sector job in South Florida's newest skyscraper. Suddenly, he suffered such bizarre medical symptoms, doctors suspected he'd been poisoned by the Mafia. Bell's rapidly declining health forced him to flee his glamorous Miami life to a sterile "bubble" in the remote Arizona desert.

As an active surgeon and former department chairman, Dr. Paul A. Ruggieri has seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of his profession. In Confessions of a Surgeon, he pushes open the doors of the OR and reveals the inscrutable place where lives are improved, saved, and sometimes lost. He shares the successes, failures, remarkable advances, and camaraderie that make it exciting.

Mary MacLeod's mother died in childbirth when Mary was five, an event that marked for the child a "before time" - a lost joyful time - and after. She was shunted from one relative to another while her father coped with his grief. He married again only nine months later, perhaps to have a mother for his child, but her new mum, harsh and withholding of her love, quickly exerted complete control over her thoughts and deeds, with her father oblivious.