Medical Memoirs

In 1907 Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung began what promised to be both a momentous collaboration and the deepest friendship of each man's life. Six years later they were bitter antagonists, locked in a savage struggle that was as much personal and emotional as it was theoretical and professional. In between them stood a young woman named Sabina Spielrein, who had been both patient and lover to Jung and colleague and confidante to Freud before going on to become an innovative psychoanalyst herself.

An award-winning science writer discovers she’s faceblind and investigates the neuroscience of sight, memory, and imagination—while solving some long-running mysteries about her own life. Science writer Sadie Dingfelder has always known that she’s a little quirky. But while she’s made...

After 28 days on a respirator, hanging in the balance of life and death at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Queens, Gary Mizel was well enough to be sent into a rehabilitation center to regain the strength to hold up his head and walk again. A month later, Mizel was released to his only family member, his sister Vicki, and returned to his home in Astoria. This miraculous story of recovery is being published in Vicki Mizel’s newest book, A Sister’s Love–How Family Bonds Can Save a Life.

As an Emergency Medicine consultant in one of the busiest departments in the United Kingdom, Dr. Jonny Acheson loved his job. Fueled by adrenaline, he treated and cared for some of the sickest patients who came through the doors. In 2016, when he was forty-one, he was diagnosed with Parkinson's, a progressive neurological condition for which there is no cure. He found it increasingly difficult to multitask in his fast-paced world. The environment that he thrived in made his symptoms worse. Parkinson's challenged his professional identity as an emergency doctor, and he didn't know what to do.

Between Wounded and Well: Lessons in Healing shares a nurse practitioner journey of resilience and hope through the lens of wound healing stages. Debra Palmer, PhD, nurse, researcher, educator and survivor shares an extraordinary story of a childhood marked by trauma and chaos, in which she chooses to not let her past define her future. Through decades of personal struggle and professional insight, she discovered that healing begins with courage.

After Lachlan McIver's father suffers a sudden, fatal heart attack it sends him into a spiral of grief and outrage. This tragedy inspires him to become a doctor and he eventually finds his calling – providing care for communities in some of the most remote and neglected parts of the world. In this no-holds-barred memoir, Lachlan recounts his experiences treating patients and tackling health problems across dozens of countries.

In Portrait of a Kaleidoscope Life, Dr. Douglas Johnson shares a dazzling mosaic of moments that are as daring as they are transformative. From bloody bullfights and failed parachute jumps to conducting cancer research and surviving his own diagnosis, his life defies convention and embraces reinvention. Along the way, he finds himself caught in the collapse of the Shah of Iran, the chaos of the Desert One rescue mission, and the shadows of nuclear disasters like Chernobyl.

Since 7 October 2023, both local and international doctors have risked their lives to deliver medical aid to Gaza's population. Dr. Victoria Rose, a senior plastic surgeon at Guy's & St. Thomas', is one of them, completing three tours over the last two years. Keeping diaries as she works in an increasingly devastated city, she reveals the pressures and demands of saving lives in a war zone, and the human stories at the heart of a humanitarian disaster.

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.

**This program is read by Nicholas Ralph, star of the PBS Masterpiece series** "Add in the narration of Nicholas Ralph, and you have a first-rate audio experience. Ralph plays Herriot in the PBS series, but he does not simply bank on his star power. He narrates the stories with empathy and...

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.

A Life in Trauma is a frank, remarkable account of a career spent helping others, offering a positive outlook on the potential of Ireland’s healthcare system in the future. Concern. Compassion. Doubt. Despair. Anger. Hope. Imagine juggling these feelings every day in a situation where your work could mean the difference between someone's life or death.

When Kathleen O’Keefe-Kanavos discovered a pea-sized lump in her breast, she did what any sensible woman would do: She went to see her doctor, who assured her that she was in good health and that the lump was nothing but a fibrous tumor and posed no threat. Kathleen was not convinced, particularly in light of the fact that her mother had recently died of cancer. In a dream that night, Kathleen saw her spiritual guide/guardian angel who took her hand, placed it on her breast, and said, “You have cancer right here. Feel it? Go back to your doctor. Don’t wait for an appointment.”

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.

Hayley Okines is like no other 13-year-old schoolgirl. In Old Before My Time, Hayley and her mum, Kerry, reflect on her unusual life. Share Hayley’s excitement as she travels the world meeting her pop heroes Kylie, Girls Aloud, and Justin Bieber and her sadness as she loses her best friend to the disease at the age of 11. Now as she passes the age of 13 - the average life expectancy for a child with progeria - Hayley talks frankly about her hopes for the future and her pioneering drug trials in America which could unlock the secrets of ageing for everyone....

Cystic fibrosis was once a mysterious disease that killed infants and children. Now it could be the key to healing millions with genetic diseases of every type - from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's to diabetes and sickle cell anemia. Told from the perspectives of the patients, families, physicians, scientists, and philanthropists fighting on the front lines, Breath from Salt is a remarkable story of unlikely scientific and medical firsts, of setbacks and successes, and of people who refused to give up hope....

Sara Schley is the founder of a consulting business, and she has worked with hundreds of renowned companies worldwide. She's a proud mother, grandmother, community leader, and has been married for 26 years. She also has a bipolar II brain. Fearing the stigma, she kept this secret for decades. Until now. In her acclaimed memoir BrainStorm: From Broken to Blessed on the Bipolar Spectrum, Sara tells her life-changing story to help end the bipolar stigma, optimize brain health, and save lives. Listen to this book to transform your life or that of someone you love.

The late Dr. Michihiko Hachiya was director of the Hiroshima Communications Hospital when the world's first atomic bomb was dropped on the city. Though his responsibilities in the appalling chaos of a devastated city were awesome, he found time to record the story daily, with compassion and tenderness. Dr. Hachiya's compelling diary was originally published by the UNC Press in 1955, with the help of Dr. Warner Wells of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

All In My Head is a memoir by a woman who in her early 50s received a life-shattering diagnosis. It is about her determined search for effective treatment, the birth of a campaign to get proper data and funding for research into glioblastoma (GBM), and finally her coming to terms with the knowledge that she has reached the end of the road.

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.