Medical jobs are usually intense rather than entertaining – apart from what happens on Shortland Street, and in these books! This blog features unique books about the pain, the humour and the detective-work required in the medical profession, and the extraordinary lives of doctors and nurses.
Undoctored : the story of a medic who r an outof patients / Kay, Adam
“This is Going to Hurt was read by millions, translated into 37 languages, and adapted into a major BBC television series. Adam Kay again have you in stitches in his painfully funny and startlingly powerful follow-up. In his most honest and incisive book, battered and bruised from his time on the NHS frontline, Kay wrote hilarious, heart-breaking, horrifying, humbling, and astonishing portrait of a life.” (Adapted from catalogue)
The flying doctor / Baldwin, Dave
“Second book after ‘Healthy bastards’, this time with his misadventures, escapades and high jinks from a life of medicine, aviation and hunting. From his early years struggling with dyslexia to graduating from med school, from learning to fly and joining the New Zealand Air Force to becoming a cardiologist at Palmerston North Hospital and setting up a general practice in Bulls. Well known for his eccentric personalist and unmistakably Kiwi turn of phrase, author tells a story that’s as highly entertaining and unique. ” (Adapted from catalogue)
Every patient tells a story : medical mysteries and the art of diagnosis / Sanders, Lisa
“This work presents an unflinching look inside the detective story that marks nearly every illness – the diagnosis and dilemmas that reveals the combination of uncertainty and intrigue that doctors face when confronting patients who are sick or dying. A healthy young man suddenly loses his memory; a young woman lies dying in the ICU—bleeding, jaundiced, incoherent—and none of her doctors know what is killing her.” (Adapted from Amazon.com)
The deadly dinner party and other medical detective stories / Edlow, Jonathan A
“Real-life medical detective stories, practicing physician and award-winning author shows the doctor as detective in stories that are as gripping as the best thrillers. A notorious stomach bug turns a suburban dinner party into a disaster that almost claims its host; a diminutive woman eats more than her football-playing boyfriend but continually loses weight; an executive is diagnosed with lung cancer, yet the tumors seem gone. ” (Adapted from catalogue)
The unexpected patient / McInnes, Himali
“The Unexpected Patient tells the stories of patients who impacted health carers in unforgettable ways: patients who showed stubborn perseverance on the road to recovery, who clung to hope in the face of unexpected trauma, and who illuminated the indomitable depths of the human spirit. The Unexpected Patient is about human relationships and the bonds forged between two people: a medic and that one, unforgettable patient.” (Adapted from catalogue)
The medicine : a doctor’s notes / Hitchcock, Karen
“In The Medicine, Dr Karen Hitchcock takes us to the frontlines of everyday treatment, turning her acute gaze to everything from the flu season to dementia, plastic surgery to the humble sick day. In an overcrowded, underfunded medical system, she explores how more of us can be healthier, and how listening carefully to a patient’s experience can be as important as prescribing a pill. These dazzling essays show Hitchcock to be one of the most fearless and illuminating medical thinkers of our time – reasonable, insightful and deeply humane.” (Adapted from catalogue)
The courage to care : a call for compassion / Watson, Christie
“Nurses have never been more important. We benefit from their expertise in our hospitals and beyond: in our schools, on our streets, in prisons, hospices and care homes. When we feel most alone, nurses remind us that we are not alone at all. We are all deserving of compassion, and as we share in each other’s suffering, Christie Watson shows us how we can find courage too. The courage to care.” (Adapted from catalogue)
