People doing their premeds and even those doing shadowing in our facility often ask what good books are to read before starting medical school. Most of the time the students want to understand how things work especially when it come to facing difficult situations not limited to medical mistakes, angry families and end of life decision making. Although certain aspects of these concerns might be a little bit early or too much for a pre-med to handle but I selected the best 10 books that are recommend by some universities and pioneers in the medical field.
By the time most of us meet our doctors, they've been in practice for a number of years. Often they seem aloof, uncaring, and hurried. Of course, they're not all like that, and most didn't start out that way. Here are voices of third-year students just as they begin to take on clinical responsibilities. Read more.....
On average, a physician will interrupt a patient describing her symptoms within eighteen seconds. In that short time, many doctors decide on the likely diagnosis and best treatment. Often, decisions made this way are correct, but at crucial moments they can also be wrong -- with catastrophic consequences. In this myth-shattering book, Jerome Groopman pinpoints the forces and thought processes behind the decisions doctors make. Read more.....
In 1987, Dr. Benjamin Carson gained worldwide recognition for his part in the first successful separation of Siamese twins joined at the back of the head. The extremely complex and delicate operation, five months in the planning and twenty-two hours in the execution, involved a surgical plan that Carson helped initiate. Carson pioneered again in a rare procedure known as hemispherectomy, giving children without hope a second chance at life through a daring operation in which he literally removed one half of their brain. But such breakthroughs aren’t unusual for Ben Carson. Read more.....
The story of one man's evolution from naïve and ambitious young intern to world-class neurosurgeon.
With poignant insight and humor, Frank Vertosick Jr., MD, describes some of the greatest challenges of his career, including a six-week-old infant with a tumor in her brain, a young man struck down in his prime by paraplegia, and a minister with a .22-caliber bullet lodged in his skull. Read more.....
The Premed Playbook: Guide to the Medical School Interview is the only book needed to prepare premed students for their medical school interviews. It covers traditional interviews as well as the multiple mini-interview or MMI. Through interviews with Admissions Committee members and others, Dr. Gray has compiled the most comprehensive book on this subject. Premed students want to know what to expect, but more importantly, they need to see examples of what successful applicants have done. The Premed Playbook not only gives them close to 600 potential interview questions, it also gives them real answers and feedback from interview sessions that Dr. Gray has held with students. Read more.....
Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post, The New York Times Book Review, NPR, and Chicago Tribune, now in paperback with a new reading group guide.
Medicine has triumphed in modern times, transforming the dangers of childbirth, injury, and disease from harrowing to manageable. But when it comes to the inescapable realities of aging and death, what medicine can do often runs counter to what it should. Read more.....
#1 New York Times Bestseller • Pulitzer prize finalist •
Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times Book Review • People • NPR • The Washington Post • Slate • Harper’s Bazaar • Time Out New York • Publishers Weekly • BookPage
Finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award in Creative Nonfiction and the Books for a Better Life Award in Inspirational Memoir
At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. Read more.....
Complications is a 2002 National Book Award Finalist for Nonfiction.
In gripping accounts of true cases, surgeon Atul Gawande explores the power and the limits of medicine, offering an unflinching view from the scalpel's edge. Complications lays bare a science not in its idealized form but as it actually is―uncertain, perplexing, and profoundly human. Read more.....
Mobile technology has transformed our lives, and personal genomics is revolutionizing biology. But despite the availability of technologies that can provide wireless, personalized health care at lower cost, the medical community has resisted change. In The Creative Destruction of Medicine, Eric Topol—one of the nation's top physicians—calls for consumer activism to demand innovation and the democratization of medical care. The Creative Destruction of Medicine is the definitive account of the coming disruption of medicine, written by the field's leading voice. Read more.....
At a time of great change in the technology and delivery of medical care, the timelessness and permanence of the non-technical aspects of medicine―the human side―are of profound value to patients and physicians alike. With more than 30 years of medical practice, teaching, advising, and mentoring medical students and undergraduates, Savett champions two premises: first, that the importance of physicians mastering the human side of medicine is as critical as learning its biology and technology; and second, that this can be taught. Attending to the human side refines diagnosis and treatment by recognizing the uniqueness of each patient's experience, and it enriches the experience for all those in the caring professions. Read more.....
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