Identity Theft: Rediscovering Ourselves After Stroke, by Debra Meyerson, PhD, and Danny Zuckerman. Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2019‘Identity Theft’ refers to the way that a stroke takes away from who you are- or who you think you are. Suddenly a fit, quick witted person cannot walk, or remember names, or may even lose the ability to talk at all (and ( Read more... )

Neuro Fitness: The Real Science of Peak Performance From a College Dropout Turned Brain Surgeon, by Rahul Jandial, MD, Phd. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2019Dr. Jandial is a brain surgeon who was originally a drop-out. But he is no Nick Riviera; he is a highly esteemed doctor with a PhD in neurobiology, with 20 years of post-high school education. So ( Read more... )

Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life, by Louise Aronson, M.D.. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019There are a number of problems with the way society deals with aging, and Aronson covers them here. There are few drug trials that use older people; most trials are designed around middle aged, white, males. There is no one ( Read more... )

The Patient in Room 9 Says He’s God, by Dr. Louis Profeta. O-Books, 2010
Dr. Profeta is an emergency room doctor. He sees life at its most frantic. But he has managed, through the years, to see the spiritual and moral issues in medicine. The short chapters tell us about his patients, his co-workers, his friends and family. He can come across as ( Read more... )

Also Human: the Inner Lives of Doctors, by Caroline Elton. Basic Books, 2018
Dr. Elton is a vocational psychologist who works with doctors. This has put her in place to have firsthand experience with the mental problems they have. She also obviously does a lot of research on it; she cites studies and statistics fluently ( Read more... )

The Tincture of Time: A Memoir of (Medical) Uncertainty, by Elizabeth L. Silver. Penguin Press, 2017 A ‘tincture of time’ is what is necessary for many, if not most, ailments to resolve one way or another. You give a patient antibiotics, and wait to for them to act. You cut a person open, and wait for them to knit back together. Or you wait, and ( Read more... )

Do You Have a Tipped Uterus? 69 Things Your Gynecologist Wishes You Knew, by Melissa Wolf, MD. Morgan James Publishing, 2014 This is one of those books you can read in an hour, but that doesn’t mean it’s fluff. Written by an OB/GYN, it’s full of facts about female reproductive organs and more. Sixty-nine subjects, sixty-nine facts. Most topics are ( Read more... )

Another Second Chance: God’s Story- How a Stranger’s Kidney Saved My Brother’s Life and Mine, by Troy Lewis. Writing Career Coach Press, 2011 In 1992, the author’s first child was born. Although a very healthy 24 years old at the time, he decided that he should do the responsible thing and purchase health insurance. Unexpectedly, there was protein ( Read more... )

Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus, by Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy. Viking, 2012 Rabies has been with- and horrified- people throughout history. The virus can infect any warm blooded creature and is nearly 100% fatal once symptoms show. It travels directly through the nervous system rather than the more usual route of ( Read more... )

The Liver Disorders and Hepatitis Sourcebook, by Howard J. Worman, M.D. McGraw-Hill, 2006Author Worman is a professor of medicine and attending physician at Columbia, specializing in liver disorders, and is currently doing research in hepatitis. He is uniquely qualified to write a book on the liver and the things that go wrong with it ( Read more... )