Medical Memoirs

Since it was first published in 1995, The Wounded Storyteller has occupied a unique place in the body of work on illness. Both the collective portrait of a so-called "remission society" of those who suffer from some type of illness or disability and a cogent analysis of their stories within a larger framework of narrative theory, Frank's book has reached a large and diverse following, including the ill, medical professionals, and scholars of literary theory. In this new edition, Frank adds a preface describing the personal and cultural times when the first edition was written.

"At a critical juncture during brain surgery, Alex Dixon, age 12, had a stroke...." Alex was a normal, bright, and healthy little girl, when the sudden onset of a mysterious illness began to take over her life. Months of physical therapy and medication failed to provide relief from acute pain and muscle spasms. Doctors across the country were at a loss for answers. A last ditch attempt at treatment, brain surgery, ended up stopping the spasms but with unexpected, dire consequences.

Over the next ten years, 40 to 60 million people in this country will be admitted to the ICU. Most of these hospitalizations will be sudden, unexpected, and harrowing experiences that can alter patients and their families physically and emotionally, with effects that endure for years. In this rich blend of science, medical history, profoundly humane patient stories, and personal reflection, Dr. Wes Ely describes his mission to prevent patients from being inadvertently harmed by the technology that is keeping them alive.

Citizen-Surgeon takes listeners into the otherwise inaccessible, remote, and intense world of life and surgery within a combat zone. In the backdrop of the US-led war in Afghanistan, amid a defining US Marine Corps’ offensive to conquer the Marjah region of Helmand Province, [then] US Navy Commander Paul Roach and his company-mates assemble and congeal as a medical unit in Southern California, transport from the United States to their tents in Dasht-e-Margo (the “Desert of Death”) in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

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.

Into the Gray Zone takes listeners to the edge of a dazzling, humbling frontier in our understanding of the brain: the so-called "gray zone" between full consciousness and brain death. People in this middle place have sustained traumatic brain injuries or are the victims of stroke or degenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Many are oblivious to the outside world, and their doctors believe they are incapable of thought.

Lewy Body Blues: A Family’s Roller Coaster Experience with Lewy Body Dementia is an insider’s perspective on how one family adapted and learned to cope with this incredibly challenging and progressively debilitating disease. Based on a personal journey and filled with facts and strategies for handling Lewy Body Dementia, this book is essential listening for anyone desiring to learn more about this little-known brain disorder.

As a seasoned paramedic and union leader, Anthony Almojera thought he could handle anything his job threw at him. Like many medical first responders, he came from a troubled background and carried the traumas of the city as well as its triumphs. He had grown up in the rough-and-tumble Park Slope of the 1980s, been homeless for a time, and had watched murder, addiction, and hopelessness consume those closest to him. But he had dedicated his life to helping people in need, and while every day was filled with tragedy—stabbings, shootings, accidents, suicides—it also brought moments of uplift.

Julie Flygare was on an ambitious path to success, entering law school at age 22, when narcolepsy destroyed the neurological boundaries between dreaming and reality in her brain. She faced terrifying hallucinations, paralysis, and excruciating sleepiness, aspects of dream sleep taking place while wide awake. Yet, narcolepsy was a wake-up call for Julie. Her illness propelled her onto a journey she never imagined, from lying paralyzed on her apartment floor to dancing euphorically at a nightclub; from the classrooms of Harvard Medical School to the start line of the Boston Marathon.

How and why did humans begin to treat sick and injured animals? And how did those practices, and the associated attitudes, evolve from prehistory to the present day? To answer these questions, Dr. Schott shares stories of twenty-two different animal healers and veterinarians from across eras and continents, examining the always fascinating, often unexpected, and sometimes hilarious veterinary methods employed by these people and their colleagues. But at the heart of the tale lies the evolution of the human-animal bond, which has been more cyclical than linear.

After Jim O’Connell graduated from Harvard Medical School and was nearing the end of his residency at Massachusetts General, the hospital’s chief of medicine made a proposal: Would he defer a prestigious fellowship and spend a year helping to create an organization to bring health care to homeless citizens? That year turned into O’Connell’s life’s calling. Tracy Kidder spent five years following Dr. O’Connell and his colleagues as they work with thousands of homeless patients, some of whom we meet in this illuminating book.

The summer of 1959 promises to stretch slowly forward, with one exception. The looming deadline of entering the Saint John General Hospital school of nursing as a probationer student, interrupts the worry-free days with a nagging doubt. Is nursing the right choice? Self-doubt is mingled with preparation in advance of the date of entry while Francene gets more jittery as the day approaches. She was born to nurse but did not know it yet.

A 23-year veteran of emergency medical services, paramedic Matthew Sias took a detour in his career to pursue the death-care business and found a complementarity between two seemingly divergent careers. Silent Siren: Memoirs of a Life Saving Mortician is the record of some of the more memorable calls he has responded to through the years.

Blending personal anecdotes with hard science, an accomplished physician, researcher, and science communicator pulls back the curtain on medicine and medical research, revealing how progress is made—and how to rebuild trust between doctors and patients​: "A brilliant step toward...

From the challenges of navigating disorientation to the moments when guilt and resentments creep in, listeners are guided gently through slow-burning grief. Along the way, Davis shares how her own fractured family came together, and how her father revealed his true self - always kind, even when he couldn't recognize his own daughter. The result is an achingly beautiful work on the fragile human condition from a profoundly wise and empathetic writer.

When North Korean forces invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950, Otto Apel was a surgical resident living in Cleveland, Ohio, with his wife and three young children. A year later he was chief surgeon of the 8076th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, constantly near the front lines in Korea. Immediately upon arriving in camp, Apel performed 80 hours of surgery. His feet swelled so badly, he had to cut his boots off, and he saw more surgical cases in those three and a half days than he would have in a year back in Cleveland.

When a patient first asked Dr. Reggie Anderson to sit at her bedside as she passed from this life, something miraculous happened. As he held her hand, the veil between this world and the next parted…and he received an astonishing glimpse of what awaits us in heaven. Little did he know this was just a foretaste of what was to come - a lifetime of God-given "appointments with heaven." Join Reggie as he shares remarkable stories from his life and practice, including the personal tragedy that nearly drove him away from faith forever.

What can death teach us about life? Conducting many thousands of post-mortems has given Dr Richard Shepherd the opportunity to examine death at every stage of life. Each autopsy is its own unique investigation, providing evidence of how, through life, the risks to us ebb and flow. From old to young, from murder to misadventure and from illness to accidental death, each body has taught him something: about human development, about mortality, about its owner's life story, about justice and even about himself.

"Petkoff gives a flawless performance of this doctor/naturalist's memoir, conveying both his inquisitiveness and assuredness with aplomb." - AudioFile "A fascinating, lyrical book... Reisman's experiences in other cultures bring a richness and depth to The Unseen Body. The way he thinks about...

Ein Moment im Leben, der alles veränderte – live im Fernsehen. Mario D. Richardt wurde vor laufenden Kameras mit einer uncharmanten Aussage konfrontiert: Du hast ja ganz schön zugenommen! Dieser peinliche Augenblick entpuppte sich als Wendepunkt in Marios Leben. Warum nahm er stetig zu, obwohl er seine Essgewohnheiten nicht verändert hatte? Die Diagnose Insulinresistenz trifft ihn wie ein Blitz aus heiterem Himmel. Und er ist nicht allein: Ein erheblicher Anteil der übergewichtigen Menschen kämpft mit diesem Problem.