AAMC Summer Reading: Home

The rousing, captivating story of a Black physician, her career in medicine, and the deep inequities that still exist in the U.S. healthcare system

A world-class oncologist examines the current state of cancer and its devastating impact on the individuals it affects -- including herself.

A thrilling look at how science advances on a grand scale to improve human lives, examining more than one hundred years of remarkable medical breakthroughs, connecting this fascinating history with the inspiring and heartbreaking stories of his transplant patients. A beautiful, poignant reminder that a life lost can also offer the hope of a new beginning.

Mixing the tense drama of ER with the screwball humor of Scrubs, McCarthy offers a window on to hospital life that dispenses with sanctimony and self-seriousness while emphasizing the black-comic paradox of becoming a doctor- How do you learn how to save lives in a job where there is no practice?

With astonishing compassion and candor, leading neurosurgeon Henry Marsh reveals the fierce joy of operating, the profoundly moving triumphs, the harrowing disasters, the haunting regrets and the moments of black humor that characterize a brain surgeon's life.

Gripping accounts of true cases, and the power and limits of modern medicine, laying bare a science not in its idealized form but as it actually is -- complicated, perplexing, and profoundly human.

A Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter's moving narrative of a group of patient advocates who are revolutionizing the way medical research is conducted.

As a retired brain surgeon, Henry Marsh thought he understood illness, but he was unprepared for the impact of his diagnosis of advanced cancer. And Finally explores what happens when someone who has spent a lifetime on the frontline of life and death finds himself contemplating what might be his own death sentence.

Follow the lives of five uninsured Houstonians as their struggle for survival leads them to a hospital that prioritizes people over profit. Whether due to immigration status, income, or the vagaries of state Medicaid law, all five are denied access to care. Each patient eventually lands at Ben Taub, the county hospital where patient care is more important than insurance payments.

Can refocusing conversations between doctors and their patients lead to better health? Through powerfully resonant human stories, Dr. Ofri explores the high-stakes world of doctor-patient communication that we all must navigate.

A riveting first-hand account of a physician who's suddenly a dying patient, and her revelation of the horribly misguided standard of care in the medical world

A gripping memoir and medical suspense story about a young New York Post reporter's struggle with a rare and terrifying disease, opening a new window into the fascinating world of brain science. A powerful account of one woman's struggle to recapture her identity and to rediscover herself among the fragments left behind.

A surprising, groundbreaking, and fiercely entertaining medical history that is both a collective narrative of women's bodies and a call to action for a new conversation around women's health.

An in-depth look at the mavericks, moments, and mistakes that sparked the greatest medical discoveries in modern times-plus the cures that will help us live longer and healthier lives in this century . . . and beyond

This book traces the evolution of our understanding of the heart from the dawn of civilization to the present.

A century ago, sleep was considered a state of nothingness--even a primitive habit that we could learn to overcome. Then, an immigrant scientist and his assistant spent a month in the depths of a Kentucky cave, making nationwide headlines and thrusting sleep science to the forefront of our consciousness.

The Curies' newly discovered element of radium makes gleaming headlines across the nation as the fresh face of beauty, and wonder drug of the medical community. Meanwhile, hundreds of girls toil amidst the glowing dust of the radium-dial factories. The glittering chemical covers their bodies from head to toe; they light up the night like industrious fireflies. With such a coveted job, these "shining girls" are the luckiest alive--until they begin to fall mysteriously ill.

Historian Lindsey Fitzharris reveals the shocking world of nineteenth-century surgery, and shows how it was transformed by advances made in germ theory and antiseptics between 1860 and 1875. Warning: not for the squeamish!

The colorful and little-known story of the doctors who risked their careers and the patients who risked their lives to know and heal our most vital organ. Affecting, engaging, and beautifully written.

For two thousand years, cadavers--some willingly, some unwittingly--have been involved in science's boldest strides and weirdest undertakings. An oddly compelling, often hilarious exploration of the strange lives of our bodies postmortem.

A graphic memoir. In her early twenties in New York City, diagnosed with bipolar disorder, Rachel Lindsay takes a job in advertising in order to secure healthcare coverage for her treatment. But work takes a strange turn when she is promoted onto the Pfizer account and suddenly finds herself on the other side of the curtain, developing ads for an anti-depressant drug.

Four months after James A. Garfield's presidential inauguration, a deranged office seeker tracked him down and shot him in the back. But the shot didn't kill Garfield. Physicians administered shockingly archaic treatments, to disastrous effect. But as his con­dition worsened, Garfield received help: Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, worked around the clock to invent a new device capable of finding the bullet.