Medical

At the age of 36, on the verge of completing a decade's worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer....

Her name was Henrietta Lacks, but scientists know her as HeLa. She was a poor Southern tobacco farmer who worked the same land as her slave ancestors, yet her cells - taken without her knowledge - became one of the most important tools in medicine....

I’ve gone from being a hapless victim of my anxiety, never knowing when it would end, to having a path that helps me every single time anxiety comes up. People with anxiety are confused because they don't know what is happening to them....

In the tradition of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone and shows such as In Treatment, a riveting look behind the closed door of the therapist's office....

A Harvard-trained neurosurgeon's minute-by-minute account of his own near-death experience - and what he discovered in the heavenly realm beyond life.....

A searing, deeply moving memoir of illness and recovery traces one young woman’s journey from diagnosis to remission to reentry into “normal” life....

After his December 2003 arrest, registered nurse Charlie Cullen was quickly dubbed "The Angel of Death" by the media....

The highly anticipated debut from the acclaimed, award-winning New Yorker writer Rachel Aviv compels us to examine how the stories we tell about mental illness shape our sense of who we are....

In My Stroke of Insight, Taylor shares her perspective on the brain and its capacity for recovery, and the sense of omniscient understanding she gained from this inspiring voyage....

Marsha Linehan tells the story of her journey from suicidal teenager to world-renowned developer of the life-saving behavioral therapy DBT, using her own struggle to develop life skills for others....

Kidder tells the true story of a socially conscious genius who uses his intellectual and personal gifts to solve global health problems.

Scribbled in secret after endless days, sleepless nights, and missed weekends, comedian and former medical resident Adam Kay’s This Is Going to Hurt provides a no-holds-barred account of his time on the front lines of medicine....

When 24-year-old Susannah Cahalan woke up alone in a hospital room, strapped to her bed and unable to move or speak, she had no memory of how she’d gotten there. Days earlier, she had been on the threshold of a new, adult life....

Kate Bowler is a professor at Duke Divinity School with a modest Christian upbringing, but she specializes in the study of the prosperity gospel, a creed that sees fortune as a blessing from God and misfortune as a mark of God's disapproval....

At the age of 22, Jennifer Worth left her comfortable home to move into a convent and become a midwife in postwar London’s East End slums....

You've never listened to a book like The Reason I Jump....

Delia Ephron had struggled through several years of heartbreak. She’d lost her sister, Nora, and then her husband, Jerry, both to cancer. Several months after Jerry’s death, she decided to make one small change in her life - she shut down his landline....

Lindsey Fitzharris, the award-winning author of The Butchering Art, presents the compelling, true story of a visionary surgeon who rebuilt the faces of the First World War’s injured heroes, and in the process ushered in the modern era of plastic surgery....

Strongest advocate, best friend, expert, cheerleader and chief photographer. Before, during and after labour the role of a midwife is second to none....

James Herriot is one of the most beloved storytellers of our time, a writer whose rich and unique literary gifts are matched by an exuberant gift for celebrating existence...

In this inspiring book, Dr. Rolle tells the story of his incredible journey, revealing how a strong work ethic, deep faith, and the family values instilled by his Bahamian immigrant parents set the stage for the transformative life philosophy that enabled him to overcome adversity....

An urgently important exploration of the human stories behind Canada's evolving acceptance of Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), from one of its first and most thoughtful practitioners....

One morning in late 2017, New York Times columnist Frank Bruni woke up with strangely blurred vision. He wondered at first if some goo or gunk had worked its way into his right eye. But this was no fleeting annoyance, no fixable inconvenience....

A landmark exploration of one of the most consequential and mysterious issues of our time: the rise of chronic illness and autoimmune diseases....

Suffering from severe depression after her 18 months living disguised as a man, Vincent felt she was a danger to herself....

For nearly three decades, Dr Colin Manock was in charge of South Australia's forensic pathology services. In cases of unexpected or unexplained death, it was his job to determine when a person took their final breath, and whether they had died naturally - or not. But Manock did not have the necessary training for such a specialist role, and made serious errors in several major cases. The full extent of his wrongdoing, and the exact number of cases impacted by it, remain a mystery more than twenty-five years after he retired.

Dr. Jean Marmoreo spent her career keeping people alive. But when the Supreme Court of Canada gave the green light to Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) in 2016, she became one of a small group of doctors who chose to immediately train themselves in this new field. Over the course of a single year, Marmoreo learns about end-of-life practices in bustling Toronto hospitals, in hospices, and in the facilities of smaller communities. She found that the needed services were often minimal—or non-existent.

In Heroes Are Human: Lessons in Resilience, Courage and Wisdom from the COVID Front Lines, we hear gripping firsthand accounts by those thrust into the depths of the crisis. This book is a must-listen for health care workers who have been besieged by the ongoing pandemic, for those who love them, and for any listener wanting to gain a deeper understanding of their immense sacrifices and struggles. Heroes Are Human also offers invaluable self-care insights in the face of trauma. 

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.

This Is Going to Hurt was the publishing phenomenon of the century, read by many millions, loved by at least fifty of them, and adapted into a major TV series. But it was only part of the story. By turns hilarious, heartbreaking and humbling, Undoctored is about what happens when a doctor hangs up his scrubs, but medicine refuses to let go of him. Undoctored is Adam Kay's funniest and most moving book yet—an astonishing portrait of a life in and out of medicine, from one of Britain's finest storytellers.

In a powerful and gripping debut, Rachel Aviv raises fundamental questions about how we understand ourselves in periods of crisis and distress. Drawing on deep, original reporting as well as unpublished journals and memoirs, Aviv writes about people who have come up against the limits of psychiatric explanations for who they are. Animated by a profound sense of empathy, Aviv’s exploration is refracted through her own account of living in a hospital ward at the age of six and meeting a fellow patient with whom her life runs parallel—until it no longer does.

In his award-winning debut essay collection, What Cannot Be Undone, Walter M. Robinson shares surprising stories of illness and medicine that do not sacrifice hard truth for easy dramatics. These true stories are filled with details of difficult days and nights in the world of high-tech medical care, and they show the ongoing struggle in making critical decisions with no good answer. This collection presents the raw moments where his expertise in medical ethics and pediatrics are put to the test. 

Mental illnesses are often seen as chronic and intractable forces that take over our lives, that define us. But how much do the stories we tell about our illnesses—and the process of diagnosis—inform their course? In Strangers to Ourselves, a powerful and gripping debut, Rachel Aviv writes about how explanations for mental distress may shape our health, our sense of who we are, and the possibilities for who we can be in the world.  

Brandon Lane Phillips is a “wish kid” from Louisiana who struggles to understand his health issues and his parents’ bitter divorce. Brandon envies the family-centered life actor Jeremy Miller portrays each week as Ben Seaver on the 1980s TV hit Growing Pains. When he receives a wish through the Starlight Children’s Foundation, he chooses to visit the set of the TV show and meet Jeremy. Years later, Brandon and Jeremy unexpectedly cross paths again. This is the story of two lives converging time and again through an unlikely friendship to find grace and second chances.

Dr. Tonya Echols Cole knows cancer intimately. Not only has she worked as an oncologist for decades, she is also a breast cancer survivor. Her unique position of having been both cancer doctor and cancer patient allows her to give real-world advice about how to overcome challenges that cancer survivors face, both during and after treatment. Dr. Cole combines anecdotes from her own cancer journey with personal development strategies and health maintenance advice into a comprehensive prescription for cancer survivors to thrive in a more healthy, confident, and abundant life. 

This memoir tells the story of Jeff, a young professional in his 40s whose life is thrown into chaos and uncertainty after he experiences a series of heart attacks. Once nonstop and deeply ambitious, Jeff was forced to slow down and take stock of how his lifestyle choices led him to experience this medical trauma. The book is a collection of short musings and vignettes that offer insight into experiences in hospital and on the long road to recovery. The author shares the journey toward renewal and a deeper self-knowledge, inspiring others who may be on a similar journey to do the same.

Dialysis: A Memoir portrays how a young woman's life is changed forever when her kidneys fail. Her experience of a life-threatening illness in the late 1990s put her at odds with the buoyant and youthful atmosphere of the San Francisco Bay Area during the dotcom bubble. The memoir describes how she learns to meet the emotional and physical challenges presented by kidney failure, dialysis, and a kidney transplant, and how she learns to ultimately thrive in her new life. 

Author of Do No Harm and a memoir titled Admissions, both of which became Sunday Times best sellers, Marsh has documented his career as a neurosurgeon. He spent two decades as senior consultant at St George’s hospital in London, one of the countries largest specialist units for neurosurgery, as well as travelling to Ukraine, Nepal and the United States of America to perform surgeries. Since retiring from full-time work at the NHS, Marsh has been undergoing treatment after receiving a diagnosis of advanced prostate cancer.  

As a retired brain surgeon, Henry Marsh thought he understood illness, but he was unprepared for the impact of his diagnosis of advanced cancer. And Finally explores what happens when someone who has spent a lifetime on the frontline of life and death finds himself contemplating what might be his own death sentence. As he navigates the bewildering transition from doctor to patient, he is haunted by past failures and projects yet to be completed, and frustrated by the inconveniences of illness and old age.

Lachlan was 16 when he found his father dead on the side of a dirt road in North Queensland, Australia. His father had suffered a heart attack and died alone, without warning, in the middle of nowhere. This tragedy motivated Lachlan to train as a doctor and specialise in providing medical care for people living in remote, resource-deprived locations. Lachlan's work has since taken him to over 30 countries. His experiences caring for patients and tackling health problems in some of the most extreme environments on Earth have highlighted some horrendous dilemmas.