2015 Summer Reading for Compassionate Clinicians

Compiled by Ellen Hedstrom

Here are a few 2014 and 2015 releases we’re looking forward to reading this Summer! What’s on your to-read list?

The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly: A Physician’s First Year by Matt McCarthy Matt McCarthy opens up about what is it like to survive a doctors first year in a hospital. His dreams of “reaching the unreachable patients” disappear when he faces the reality of practice, but he gains strength by learning from both mentors and patients.

The Patient Will See You Now by Eric Topol Eric Topol, one of the nation’s top physicians, describes technological advances that should put power in the hands of patients. From rapid test results on smart phones to massive open online medicine that enables real-world research, the medical establishment is changing.

The Sick Rose: Disease and the Art of Medical Illustration by Richard Barnett The Sick Rose works as a “visual tour” of medical illustration in the nineteenth century when epidemics were prominent. This book includes bizzarre and captivating images as well as important historical diagrams such as John Snow’s cholera map and Florence Nightingale’s histograms.

The Nurses: A Year of Secrets, Drama, and Miracles with the Heroes of the Hospital by Alexandra Robbins This book is told through the real-life stories of four nurses working in four different hospitals. Readers will get a behind-the-scenes look at the challenges and joys of these sometimes underappreciated heroes of medicine.

Doctored: The Disillusionment of an American Physician by Sandeep Jauhar Sandeep Jauhar, a well-established physician with an elite education and experience, accepted a position at a teaching hospital hoping for stability. Instead, he is faced with a broken system is desperate need of reform.

Here are reviews of some other books we’ve loved:

What’s Left Out by Jay Baruch True to the title, the stories in What’s Left Out are about the interstitial spaces of healthcare. While a few of the stories take place inside the hospital, the majority are about the emotional toll of dealing with illness and death in everyday life, after leaving the hospital.

The Digital Doctor by Robert Wachter Few would doubt that the incorporation of modern technology into medical care has been “strewn with land mines, large and small.”  In The Digital Doctor, Robert Wachter shows us the ways in which our modern healthcare system has changed with the addition of new technology and offers insight into the future of healthcare.

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande Through poignant stories of his own family and patients as well as intriguing research from across the globe, Gawande shares with us his quest to discover how the concept of mortality has evolved throughout history.

Ellen Hedstrom is a Research Intern at the Arnold P. Gold Foundation Research Institute and an undergraduate at Boston College where she is an EMT, an editor of The Medical Humanities Journal of Boston College, and a philosophy and medical humanities major.