Five Books About Life as a Doctor #Connect5Books

I love reading books in which people share about their real life, including memoirs and diaries. I am also very interested in medicine. Today, I am joining in with Connect Five Books and sharing five books about life as a doctor.

1. For the Love of Babies by Sue Hall. This collection of stories from an American neonatologist is truly wonderful. I read it when it first came out in 2014 and it was one of my quickest reads at the time. As regular readers of my blog know, I was born prematurely and spent three months in the neonatal unit myself. However, in this book, Hall also shares about babies born with genetic syndromes or those born addicted to drugs their mothers used.

2. Cook County ICU by Cory Franklin. This book covers nearly fifty years of medical practice, from the author and his father, in an intensive care unit in Chicago. Franklin shares his experience becoming a doctor in the ICU very candidly, including how a supervisor tried to ruin his career because Franklin dared talk back to him. You’ll also read about some fascinating patients, such as some of the early cases of AIDS, before it was known to be AIDS.

3. Doctor’s Notes by Rosemary Leonard. This is a collection of stories by a south east London GP. I took a lot longer to read it than I did the above two books, but once I got into it, it was truly enjoyable.

4. Do No Harm by Henry Marsh. This is a book by a neurosurgeon. I have read a few chapters, but can’t seem to move along in it.

5. Tales From the Couch by Bob Wendorf. Okay, I’m cheating here, as Wendorf isn’t a medical doctor. He’s a clinical psychologist. However, psychologists in the United States are often referred to as doctors too. Each chapter in this book focuses on a particular psychiatric condition. I haven’t read much of this book either yet, but would like to.

Do you enjoy reading about people’s real life or about medicine?