Medical Memoirs

At the age of 28, with his Beijing-based science communications business doing well and a new relationship blossoming, Ben Bravery woke from a colonoscopy to be told he had stage 3 colorectal cancer. As a scientist, Ben understood the seriousness of his condition. Cancer had quite literally whacked him in the guts, after all. But what he didn't expect was how being a patient, and a young one at that, would make him feel. Why hadn't he been better prepared for the embarrassment and vulnerability of lying naked on the radiation table?

September 25, 2012. Ted Neill picked up a knife to cut his wrists open and kill himself. Post hospitalization and treatment for major depressive disorder, he wrote Two Years of Wonder, a memoir based on his journey toward recovery. In it, he examines the experience that left him with such despair: living and working for two years at an orphanage for children with HIV/AIDS in Nairobi, Kenya.

Wyburn-Mason syndrome. Ever heard of it? Dan Jeffries has, and his insightful and hilarious memoir explores what it's like living with one of the world's rarest medical conditions - and then finding out you have another one. Told through an innovative new approach that combines the audiobook experience with modern technology, Me, Myself & Eye really lets the listener delve into Dan's life story.

The author of the classic New York Times bestseller Passages returns with her inspiring memoir—a chronicle of her trials and triumphs as a groundbreaking “girl” journalist in the 1960s, to iconic guide for women and men seeking to have it all, to one of the premier political profilers of...

Have you ever questioned the truths behind a seemingly ordinary life? An Apparently Normal Person" takes you on a captivating journey through the depths of trauma, resilience and the power of the human spirit. In this inspiring memoir, Bonnie Armstrong unveils the uncharted territory of her dissociation, a survival mechanism that became a catalyst for healing. At the height of an accomplished professional career, an inexplicable illness hints at a connection to a forgotten suicide attempt decades earlier.

Patti M. Hall’s life is pitched into an abyss of uncertainty when a golf ball-sized tumour is discovered in her teenage son’s head and he is diagnosed with gigantism, a disease of both legend and stigma. After scrambling to access a handful of medical experts in the field, Patti learns that her son could grow uncontrollably, his mobility could be permanently limited, and his life could be cut short without timely and aggressive treatment. Patti’s attention shifts fully to her son, away from her relationships as well as her own career and health.

Eleanor met Aaron when she was just a teenager, and he was working at a local record store - older, experienced, and irresistibly charming. Escaping the clichés of fleeting young love, their summer romance bloomed into a relationship that survived college and culminated in a marriage and two children. From the outside looking in, their life had all the trappings of what most would consider a success story. But, as in any marriage, things weren’t always as they seemed.

Join Colin Black on his journey from accidental medical student to HSE and NHS trainee and, finally, consultant paediatric anaesthetist at the largest children’s hospital in Ireland, where any given day could end in laughter or tears—and that’s just the staff. Razor-sharp and forthright, Gas Man is a disarming and frequently hilarious account of life in one of the most fascinating and thrilling professions at medicine’s frontline, where every day is a heady cocktail of severe pressure, poignancy and profound social awkwardness.

Bestselling author and psychologist Tony Bates has spent his career seeking to understand the lives of others. Here he turns his therapeutic eye on himself and describes the events and people in his own life that have made him the insightful thinker and teacher that he is today. He recalls traumatic events in his childhood that reverberated throughout his life and how, with therapy and time, he was eventually able to heal. He recounts the stories of the patients that affected him most deeply and informed both the direction of his work and his philosophy as a psychologist.

A deeply moving memoir about a couple whose lives were changed in the blink of an eye, and the love that helped them rewrite their future. Five months pregnant, on a flight to their "babymoon," Allison Pataki turned to her husband when he asked if his eye looked strange, and watched him suddenly...

In telling the history of women in medicine, the pioneers are rightly remembered and celebrated in books, articles, memorials, awards, names of buildings, and organizations. In contrast, the generation who began the transition from minority status to the current numerical equity are seldom memorialized, yet without the efforts of these few determined women in what was unambiguously a male profession, the achievements of these pioneers could easily have withered.

Lene Fogelberg is dying - she is sure of it - but no doctor in Sweden, her home country, believes her. Love stories enfold her, with her husband, her two precious daughters, her enchanting surroundings, but the question she has carried in her heart since childhood - will I die young? - is threatening all she holds dear, even her sanity. When her young family moves to the US, an answer, a diagnosis, is finally found: She is in the last stages of a fatal congenital heart disease. But is it too late?

Still I Care: Nurses Rising After Bullying is a powerful and restorative anthology that amplifies the voices of nurses who faced workplace bullying yet chose resilience over silence. Their stories uncover the unseen wounds behind the scrubs—where whispers, exclusion, and systemic mistreatment tried to dim the light of compassionate hearts. But these nurses did not surrender.

At the 12th Evacuation Hospital Cu Chi, Vietnam, Sarah L. Blum is an operating room nurse during the fighting in the iron triangle in 1967. Mass casualties with severely wounded soldiers show up for Sarah, her fellow nurses, and the surgeons to treat in the midst of mortar attacks, monsoons, and exploding artillery. Her story is intertwined with Johnny, hit by American artillery, and Jim, a baseball pitcher with multiple wounds including to his pitching hand.

Tom LeNoble’s life has been anything but ordinary, rising from the “Shack” with no hot water to the heights of Silicon Valley, and helping build some of the world’s most influential companies. He’s been a crowd-favorite performer, a bold leader, and a survivor of two life-threatening illnesses after being told three times he had six months to live. He’s navigated the AIDS epidemic’s heartbreak, personal loss, and the high-stakes world of Facebook, Walmart.com, Palm (HP), and MCI (Verizon), guiding startups and leaders through change.

On a family vacation in 2009, Dr. Renée Brown Harmon felt the first jolt of fear that something might be wrong. How could her husband, Harvey, a highly intelligent physician, marathon runner, and devoted father, be struggling to keep up with their guide’s simple instructions or unable to do simple math to calculate their daughter’s age? The heartbreaking truth was confirmed nine months later when he was diagnosed with younger-onset Alzheimer’s disease at age fifty.

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.

La vera storia del leggendario italoargentino che ha salvato milioni di persone. Un eroe, un rivoluzionario, un genio della medicina. René Gerónimo Favaloro, considerato il padre del bypass aorto-coronarico, è tutte queste cose insieme. Argentino, nemico giurato del regime peronista, è costretto a vivere per dodici anni in un minuscolo paesino nel mezzo della pampa, dove nonostante tutto riesce a creare un centro medico moderno ed efficiente.

Wise, candid, brave and incredibly moving, this superb memoir by New Zealand doctor Lucy O'Hagan is full of warm wisdom and humanity. Over her long career Dr O'Hagan has developed deep insights into the profound but often complex relationship between patients and doctors. Learning about her own struggle with what it means to be a truly useful doctor is both fascinating and absorbing.