After a semester of nonstop studying and exams, the last thing most U.S. and Caribbean medical school students want to do is read a book. However, if you’re flying home this holiday season, airport delays are inevitable. Plus, airline magazines and edited in-flight movies can be dull. So, whether you’re on a long flight or sitting in a crowded airport concourse lounge waiting for your plane to board, be sure to have a good e-book handy on your Kindle, Nook or iPad to pass the time. Thrillers and suspense novels by Dan Brown and John Grisham are great escapist fare for travel, but there are also plenty of medical-themed books available, some of which are lighthearted, humorous tales of things you will relate to, such as surviving clinical rotations and being a resident. Others are more serious, but shed light on provocative historical and modern-day topics in medicine and health care. We list the following e-books in no particular order, and this is hardly a comprehensive list because we’re not claiming to be medical literary arbiters of taste. Charge your e-reader or tablet and download a few of these e-books, many of which are under $10 for Kindle, Nook and iBooks editions.
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1. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green: Named “Book of the Year” by Time magazine in 2012 and slated to be adapted into a Hollywood film, Green’s #1 bestseller takes its title from a line in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and tells the story of 16-year-old Hazel, who was diagnosed with Stage 4 thyroid cancer three years earlier, with metastasis in her lungs, but has survived thanks to an experimental drug. When she meets a guy in a cancer support group, her whole life changes. (Penguin Group, $3.99 Kindle & iBooks; $5.49 Nook.)
2. In Stitches: A Memoir by Anthony Youn, M.D. with Alan Eisenstock: This hilarious collection of essays recounts an Asian American’s journey from being a nerdy kid with “Hannibal Lechter headgear” and braces to medical school, where he practices sutures on pig’s feet and chicken breasts to losing his first patient on the first day of clinical rotations to eventually becoming a noted plastic surgeon and TV talk show regular. If you like humorous books of essays like Running with Scissors by David Sedaris or TV’s “Scrubs”, you’ll love this one. (Gallery Books, $10.38 Kindle; $11.99 iBooks; $11.66 Nook.)
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3. And the Band Played On: People, Politics and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts: This 1987 chronicle of the AIDS pandemic by the late San Francisco Chronicle science journalist is a classic, reporting on the first five years of AIDS in America. Shilts criticizes the medical and scientific communities and their lackluster response in the early years, when AIDS mostly struck gay men, Haitians and intravenous drug addicts. He is particularly critical of the Reagan Administration and the way the late President Ronald Reagan allegedly “misled” Congress on repeated pleas for funding and awareness. He also blasts gay leaders for their lackadaisical handling of warning people about the killer virus, and slams the mainstream media as well. Finally, he covers the squabbling amongst scientists over taking credit for discovering HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The book has the fast-paced excitement of a detective novel, but is historically accurate and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. (St. Martin’s Press, $9.99 Kindle, iBooks & Nook.)
4. The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee: This bestseller by oncologist, researcher, and award-winning science writer Siddhartha Mukherjee won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction in 2011. Looking at cancer over the past 5,000 years, Mukherjee covers everything from Persian Queen Atossa having a primeval mastectomy performed by a Greek slave to 19th century recipients of primitive radiation and chemotherapy to the author’s own patient suffering from leukemia. (Scribner, $10.99 Kindle & iBooks; $13.11 Nook.)
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5. Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande: This 2003 collection of personal essays from Atul Gawande, a doctor and science writer for the New Yorker magazine, is mostly noteworthy for his reflections on daily experiences as a surgical resident, and explains why medicine can never be free of mistakes as long as it is practiced by human beings. The book was a National Book Award Finalist for Nonfiction. (Picador, $8.89 Kindle; $9.99 iBooks & Nook.)
6. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot: This #1 New York Times bestseller tells the amazing story of Henrietta Lacks, a poor African-American tobacco farmer in the South, who died from cervical cancer in 1951. Shortly before her death, doctors removed a sample of cancer cells from the woman’s body without her knowledge or permission. Although the cancer cell sample was one of the first to be studied in a laboratory and helped scientists make important advances in medicine, including the polio vaccine, in vitro fertilization, gene mapping and cloning, huge ethical questions were raised. Rebecca Skloot takes us on an epic journey from the segregated “colored” ward of Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1950s to laboratories and Henrietta Lacks’ hometown of East Baltimore, where her children and grandchildren try to make sense of her legacy. (Crown Publishing, $8.09 Kindle; $8.99 iBooks; $9.99 Nook.)
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7. The House of God: The Classic Novel of Life and Death in an American Hospital by Samuel Shem, M.D.: This 1978 satire is considered requisite reading for any medical student. It is a thinly veiled roman à clef about a group of med students in the 1970s, all graduates of Best Medical School or “BMS” (modeled after Harvard Medical School). The students take a medical internship at the fictional House of God (based on Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital). The hero, Dr. Roy Basch, is a naïve intern who learns from the senior resident, called “The Fat Man,” that the sick can only be healed by breaking all the rules. (Berkley, Penguin Group, $9.99 Kindle & iBooks; $12.99 Nook.)
8. The Devil Wears Scrubs by Freida McFadden: McFadden’s 2013 humorous tale of an Internal Medicine intern, Jane McGill, and the menacing senior resident who supervises her, Dr. Alyssa Morgan. The title, of course, is a pun on the famous book and film The Devil Wears Prada, but here we have a hospital and demanding doctors instead of catty fashion editors. McFadden writes the popular medical blog “A Cartoon Guide to Becoming a Doctor.” (Hollywood Upstairs Publishing, $2.99 Kindle.)
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9. Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance by Atul Gawande: The 2008 sequel to Complications; A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science features 11 essays (originally published in the New Yorker) about improving surgery and treatment for everything from childbirth to cystic fibrosis, and also discusses the many moral issues about doctors assisting in executing criminals sentenced to the death penalty. (Macmillan, $7.99 iBook & Kindle; $9.99 Nook.)
10. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach: A humorous but thorough account of what really happens to human cadavers in medical school and beyond. “"The way I see it, being dead is not terribly far off from being on a cruise ship,” she writes. “Most of your time is spent lying on your back." Look for chapters on such topics as med students practicing plastic surgery on decapitated human heads and the “beating heart” cadavers used for organ transplants. (W.W. Norton and Company, $7.83 Kindle; $9.99 to 11.99 iBooks; $9.99 Nook.)
What Are Your Favorite Medical-Themed E-Books?
We know we’re leaving many of your favorites out. Please let us know what e-books you recommend.
(Top photo): Photo: Pixabay
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Built in the tradition of the best US universities, the University of Medicine and Health Sciencesfocuses on individual student attention, maintaining small class sizes and recruiting high-quality faculty. We call this unique approach, “personalized medical education,” and it’s what has led to our unprecedented 96% student retention rate, and outstanding residency placements across the US and Canada. UMHS is challenging everything you thought you knew about Caribbean medical schools.
Scott is Director of Digital Content & Alumni Communications Liaison at UMHS and editor of the UMHS Endeavour blog. When he's not writing about UMHS students, faculty, events, public health, alumni and UMHS research, he writes and edits Broadway theater reviews for a website he publishes in New York City, StageZine.com.
