Lucalias

About a year ago, I ordered Atul Gawande's Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance and couldn't put it down. Next, I read his other book, Complications, and thought it was even better. Ever since, I've been looking for interesting books on medicine. I'm waiting on my next order, Gawande's latest The Checklist Manifesto and When The Air Hits Your Brain by Frank Vertosick Jr.

Browsing Amazon, I've found a lot of other books but I'm unsure which ones are any good. The lack of reviews on external sites isn't helping either. Have you guys read any interesting medical books? I'm looking for everything concerning diagnostics, specific areas of expertise, history and evolution of medicine, etc. Got any recommendations?

TheMadFapper

Richard Selzer has some excellent books of essays about his experiences as a doctor, among them Confessions Of A Knife and Mortal Lessons. Richard Preston has written two excellent books on viruses, The Hot Zone and The Demon In The Freezer. For a look at the neurological side of things there is Oliver Sacks whose books include The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat and Awakenings.

Rex Power Colt-Robot Man

Im reading "Emergency" by Marc Brown about his experiences in the ER as well as other docs. Also I would recommend "Paramedic: On the Front Lines of Medicine" by Peter Canning and his second book "Rescue 471". Not really in depth on the medicine front, but interesting books none the less especially in the realm of pre-hospital care.

Lucalias

Selzer's essays definitely look interesting. From what I gather from Amazon's descriptions, his work tends to have religious undertones? Am I right to assume that or is that too absolute a term? Those books on viruses are exactly what I was looking for! (Put The Hot Zone in my cart) Neurological explanations of physical phenomena are also always intriguing.

Thanks, might be worth checking out, even though, like you said, they seem to be low on the medicine which is more what I'm after.

Thanks to both of you! I just received both books I mentioned and can't wait to dig into When The Air Hits Your Brain.

TheMadFapper

Unfortunately it's been well over 20 years since I even glanced at the Seltzer books, they were ones my parents had and I certainly wasn't into them at the the time, though I did glance at them and they did have a spriitual element to them.

If you are interested in a fictional book about viruses that also has a good bit of non-fiction/history in it, I'd recommend another book by Richard Preston, The Cobra Event, which is about a bio weapons attack, but also goes into some "secret history" on the bio weapons programs of both the United States and Soviet Union.