This page is for students of Medical Literature. Type your review in Word and spell check (remember to italicize title). Copy paste into comment box. Do not include your last name when asked for name. Include the author and title, genre, page length, lexile or grade for reading level. Then include a brief summary in your own words, and an evaluation of the writer’s craft and story. Tell us what you got out of the story, whether you enjoyed it and why. You must include your first name, your last initial, and your grade.
You can instead create a Good Reads account and then review the book there and post the link to your review in our comment box with first name, last initial, grade.
Franklin High School Toolbox 
AiHan L.
11th Grade
Title: Brain On Fire- My Month of Madness
Author: Susannah Cahalan
Genre: Medical Memoir
Page Length: 252 Pages
Susannah Cahalan had been working as an investigative reporter at the New York Post for ten years but a sudden start of an obsession with bed bugs would changed her life forever. The start of Susannah illness had come as a sudden surprise for her family as well as herself. Throughout the month that Susannah was treated at NYU hospital, she experienced hallucinations, out-of-body experience, seizures and etc. Although Susannah parents were divorced, they had come together to help her through the hospital stay. Susannah’s boyfriend had been a incredible support for her during the illness, and her co-workers and friends showed their sympathy towards her during visits. It took a dozens of doctors and many restless nights to figure out Susannah’s rare illness, but once they found out that Susannah had anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis, she was right away discharged from NYU but still had continued treatment for close to a year before she felt herself again. The book talks about the struggle and inner thoughts Susannah had at the hospital, her relationship with her parents and her boyfriend, and of course it also talks about the illness itself. It has always been hard for me to get into a book but this book was definitely a great read and worth my time. The book is easy to read and the short chapters keeps the story short and interesting. The book touched on many subjects such as life and death, love, and trust, and it is written so well that the book lured me in and left me wanting more.
11th Grade
Wish I Could Be There
By Allen Shawn
Genre: Medical Memoirs
Page Length: ~250
Dealing with the challenges that an everyday phobic encounters, author Allen Shawn, an agoraphobic tells of his personal experiences and goes into depth with its relation to the human psyche. Throughout the book, he explores areas of the subconscious, gives insight on mental disorders and further depicts the reasons behind human actions. I was personally able to relate to many of the examples the author provided. In one way or another, every reader can connect to this story because the topics covered in this book have appeared in everyone’s life at least once, if not more. Besides phobias, Shawn talks about anxiety and how both nurture and nature plays a crucial role in the way we carry ourselves. However, I found that in order to comprehend parts of this book readers need to put effort in to stay focused. Overall, this book has given me a better understanding of phobias and disorders related to mental health. I recommend this book not just to anyone that is interested in the psychology field but also wants to take a look into someone’s first hand experience with phobias and the associated symptoms.
Helen T.
12th Grade
Tell Me Where It Hurts
By Dr Nick Trout
Genre: Medical Journal Entries
Page Length: 304
This book is a journal entry of Dr Trout’s day as a vet. He starts off his day from a wake up call at 2:47 a.m and he divides his chapters into hours along the day. This book is really interesting because it gives the reader an idea of how it will feel to be a vet, it also includes a little bit of history and humor. If you are really interested in animals and isn’t sure if being a vet is right for you, this book will help you out because Dr Trout mentions both the ups and downs in becoming a vet and insights on some procedures. I enjoy this book because throughout it, the author made me sad, but he always cheered me up by the end of every chapter. He also leaves me questioning what happened and what will happen at the end of every chapter, making me to want to continue reading. I would highly recommend this book for people who have an interest in animals, but aren’t quite sure about being one.
12th Grade
Christine Montross
Body of Work
Genre: Literature/Non-fiction
295 pages
The book Body of Work by Christine Montross, writes as a nervous medical student who experienced dissections of Eve, her cadaver. When she met Eve, she found herself captivated by her beauty of the human form. The story of Montross and Eve is a shocking examination of mysteries of the human body. It is also an incredible look at our relationship with the living and the dead. Christine goes through personal transformation and learned a lot about herself during her years in medical school. This book relates to me in many ways. I want to be major in Pre-Physician Assistant and this book has many medical terms and history that I learned. Being in the medical field is really difficult and it has complications. I will obviously have mix emotions in medical school. I enjoyed this book because this relates to my major a lot. This book was pretty interesting with the dissections of the cadavers, the history, and religion.
Body of Work
by Christine Montross
292 pages
The book, “Body of Work” was a in depth look at the physical and psychological aspects of a human cadaver dissection. This book is about a young woman in medical school named Christine. Christine finds herself becoming more and more connected to the cadaver. This book was really interesting to me in regards to the psychological aspect. It really made me think more than any other book I’ve read in the past. I now know what kind of attitude I would chose to take into medical school now after reading this book.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the medical field or for anyone on the fence of getting into the medical field. I think the book really brings a different look into what certain doctors have to go through on a day to day basis. Overall its a good book but you have to be patient with it because at times it can get rather boring but it kept my attention pretty well and not a lot of books have done that for me.
Title: Body of Work
Author: Christine Montross
Pages: 290
The Body of Work is truly an inspirational book if you are considering or have ever considered to go to medical school. Reading this book takes you on a journey to a whole different world. Before I started the book, I knew I would be reading about the dissections of a human body. What I didn’t know is the behind the scenes emotions and work put in to cut open a body. It’s nice to read something personal and straight from the heart. I have to admit, some parts of the book made me feel sick to my stomach. Other times, I would find myself wondering about the dead bodies. I was really interested in their history of their lives before dead. Christine, the author, wrote down every thought that went through her head while she attended medical school. Her details drew out images of her experiences for me. Sometimes, she includes personal journal entries that were written during the hardest times.
There are many secrets revealed throughout the book that most doctors wouldn’t admit, like the way they hide their fear and sorrow for patients. One of the best things I recieved from this book is the medical history. I know that without reading this book, I wouldn’t ever have learned even half of the information from any other source. It’s good to learn how dissecting the human body came about, and what people went through to get the chance to study of off dead bodies. I certainly don’t regret reading this book, but I learned that medical school isn’t for me.
Body of Work
By: Christine Montross
Medical Memoir
292 pages
Christine Montross, a medical student at the time wrote the Body of Work in hopes of being able to give her audience an insight to how her life has been throughout her four years in medical school. Throughout the story, she takes the readers through her journey of what she has encountered one chapter at a time. From starting as a nervous medical student standing outside of the anatomy lab to being one of the first to participate in the dissections, she has slowly been able to be able to get use to Eve, her cadaver she has been dissecting. Although she may have went back and thought about how Eve was once alive many times after every incision, she learned how to see the cadavers differently and not have it affect her time in the labs.
Because Montross talked about her journey through medical school , not only was I, but many other students were able to get an insight to how many medical students have felts and the impact it had on their lives. The way she took her readers through her life in school one chapter at a time, made it easier for many people to follow along with what she is doing and how she felt. If I had to recommend a book to students that wanted an insight to what it is life in the medical school, I would recommend this book.
Body of Work
Christine Montross
Medical Memoir
292 pages
The book Body of Work is about the life story of Christine’s experience throughout medical school mainly focusing around her dissection of Eve (The cadaver) and her bond with the cadaver, while pulling out medical and emotional knowledge for her future assignments in the medical field.
Starting the book I really didn’t expect much, during the first few chapters i had a hard time trying to get immersed into the book, because of the authors slow transition to the main topic of the book it self instead she talked about her life and outdoor travel through the history of the medical field. Continuing the book Christine has started to focus on one story and is now talking about her relationship with her cadaver eve. Body of Work has take its turn on me and is now pulling me in, what I like about this a Christine’s work is how she is able to connect and respect Eve while cutting into her, and how she is able to use those connections in her time with real patients.
Body of Work By: Christine Montross
Medical Memoir
292 Pages
Body of Work is about a student in her first year of medical school and her experience of dissecting a cadaver who she name, Eve. Throughout the book Montross talk about her experience with the cadaver and somewhat talk her way into dissecting the body. She talks about each things she have dissected and name them. In between her cadaver dissection experiences she talks about how religion do with dead body, history of early famous people such as Vesalius. She also talks about her experience with people in the hospital and how emotional she got when you’re not suppose to.
The book teaches me things I did not know. For example, the history of medical dissection and a brief description on dissecting the cadaver. The book give us a good visual in the medical dissection field and how difficult it is. All in all, the book is well written and she did a good job in telling her experience.
Body of Work (292 pages)
Christine Montross
Medical Memoir
Christine Montross is a first year medical student that illustrates her experience dissecting cadavers and using the knowledge she has learned and translating it to living patients. She discusses the physical, mental, and emotional toll dissecting and medical school has on a person. Christine within this incorporates pieces of medical history, quotes and art pieces from pioneers of medicine like Galan, Versalius, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Deschartes, while also keeping a author and reader connection.
If you are interested in the anatomy and physiology of the body this is a great book for you. Her writing involves a lot of the medical language so you learn a ton of medical terminology. She explains in depth what life is like for a first year medical student. You learn things about yourself and how you should handle adverse situations. I found Christine’s experiences easy to reflect and connect to. This book will make you think and that is why I enjoyed it.
Title: Body of Work
Author: Christine Montross
Medical Memoir
292 pages
Body of Work is an unforgettable examination of the mysteries of the human body and a remarkable look at our relationship with both the living and the dead. She was nervous standing outside the anatomy lab on her first day of class, preparing herself for what was to come. Entering a room with stainless-steel tables topped by corpses in body bags is shocking no matter how long you’ve prepared yourself, but a strange thing happened when Montross met her cadaver. Instead of being disgusted by her, she was utterly intrigued – intrigued by the person the woman once was, humbled by the sacrifice she had made in donating her body to science, fascinated by the strange, unsettling beauty of the human form. They called her Eve. Montross was so affected by her experience with Eve that she undertook to learn more about the history of cadavers and the study of anatomy. She visited an autopsylab in Ireland and the University of Padua in Italy where Vesalius, a forefather of anatomy, once studied; she learned about body snatchers and grave-robbers and anatomists who practiced their work on live criminals. Her disturbing, often entertaining anecdotes enrich this exquisitely crafted memoir, endowing an eerie beauty to the world of a doctor-in-training.
Body of Work
Christine Montross
Medical Memoir
292 page
Body of Work, by Christine Montross, is about a medical student working on a cadaver during her first year of medical school. Christine takes us through series of different parts of the body, explaining how each dissection is done. This book is great because not only does it talk about the dissection but also the history of medicine, for example she talks a lot about Vesalius and his discovers about Galen’s work being mostly wrong. This book is great to read if you want to get into the medical field because it talks about the struggles Christine goes through for her first few years. Who knows maybe after reading about this book you may feel that the medical field isn’t for you. This book also have a bad side to it. Christine tends to drags things out, for example she would be talking about hand dissection and then 2 page later she would talk about grave digging and the medical history. It is great to read about the history’s of medicine and all but sometimes you just want her to get to the point of what she was initially talking about instead of being side track. Overall this book is a great book for a medical class.
Body Of Work
Christine Montross
Medical Memoir
292 Pages
Body Of Work is about a medical student named, Christine. Christine talks about her experiences in medical school and dissecting cadavers. At first she was unease about the fact the cadaver was once a living person. She did not know how to feel about dissecting the body. But she wasn’t disgusted she was actually interested by it. Christine and her group named the cadaver, Eve. To me it seemed like Christine developed a relationship or emotions with Eve.
When dissecting Eve, Christine and her group noticed that Eve had no belly button. Which was quite strange. Also when they start dissecting her urinary system, they noticed she had no gall bladder. Having no gall bladder actually raises questions about, how people store bile, which is the function of the gall bladder. Really this book is about Christine and her experiences while in medical school.
If I had to rate the book on the scale of 10, i’d give it a 7. The book kinda had me lost at some moments. But it was very interesting to read about a former medical student and her experiences. It was worth reading.
Brain On Fire
Susannah Cahalan
Memoir
~300 pages
Brain On Fire is a memoir of a woman in her 20’s that is stricken with an unknown illness that hospitalized her for months. A normal girl with a loving family, successful career, and a blossoming relationship transitions into a flighty patient struggling with what was thought to be full blown psychosis in only days. While she is an unreliable source to her own memoir due to her memory loss, Susannah recounts her experience with her unknown ailment from the memories she still holds on to and the memories of all those involved. This book also focuses on the relationships in her life and how they fail and flourish throughout her journey to recovery.
Susannah is a professional writer so, it is not surprising that her memoir is articulate and captivating. This book is organized in chronological order, beginning with the start of her symptoms and ending with her recovery. If you are looking for a book dealing with medicine and science without being dry and difficult to read, this is a great book. Susannah focuses specifically on her story but, includes the history and science behind the multitude of diagnoses in a uncomplicated and straightforward way.
If you are interested in the brain and the diseases that afflict it, this is a great book to read. I learned a lot about mental illness and how our society deals with it. Not only was it an informational book but, it was an intriguing and relatable one as well. I absolutely enjoyed it and feel that a lot of other young women, and possibly men, would also. This is a story about a healthy, successful young woman with an unexplainable illness and her difficult journey to recovery. This book covers love, illness, humor, and loss. I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone that might be interested in those subjects.
Schizophrenia
Shirley Brinkerhoff
Medical Research
124 pages
Schizophrenia is simply a book about, schizophrenia. It provides almost everything there is to know about this disease and how it effects the people around it. It talks about many different and specific cases of patients and there symptoms and how they were treated, as well as how they ended up later in life whether they got over the disease or not. It is a short and easy read but at the same time it goes into precise detail so the book doesn’t feel like a waste of time. The information I learned in the book has provided me with a better understanding of how to handle difficult people and situations by being patient and willing to listen. In the end, I was very happy and satisfied with the book because I came out of it with a higher understanding of mental health and vocabulary.
Xingling G. Grade 11
Title: Mindsight
Author: Daniel J. Siegel, M.D.
Genre: Medical / Neuroscience / Psychiatry
Page length: 314 (Pg 262-314 are notes and index)
Mindsight is a medical related book written by Daniel J. Siegel, M.D., a clinical professor of psychiatry, focusing on neuroscience and mindful awareness practices. The book is divided in two parts, the first four chapters are about the brain science and the qualities and features that are needed to cultivate in order to built good relationships with ourselves and other people; and the following eight chapters are explanations of the eight domains of integration of mind in great details, with stories of his patients who were unable to balance their thoughts and the practices that the author taught them to cultivate the mindsight skills. The science of the brain and the mind is weaved into the stories of the patients, so it is not difficult to understand. I learned a lot from Mindsight and I enjoyed reading it, from the extreme cases of unbalanced minds to the techniques and experiments used for the patients to discovering their real feelings and cultivating the qualities they need. Some of those techniques are simple, powerful, and can be practice in daily life. After Finishing Mindsight, I have a clear concept in my mind about the balance among the brain, the mind, and relationships, what qualities people need to reach the state of well-being and how to cultivate them, and the infinite potential of the brain and human mind. Mindsight can help us master our emotions, heal our relationships, and reach our fullest potential.
Title: Proof of Heaven
Author: Eben Alexander
Near death experience of a neurosurgeon
Pages: 1-164
Proof of heaven, is about a neurosurgeon, suffering from meningitis caused by the E coli bacteria. He was in a coma for seven days. He talked about his NDE(near-death experience) while in the coma which he described as in heaven. He also talked about his disease, how he got it, and what happened to his brain during different stages. At the end of the book he talked about how he put his thoughts together about the NDE together to write this book. The author did a great job when he was describing his disease and what was happening in his brain. Some times, the author is being a little scientific, which make it hard to understand. When the author goes back and forth between his experience in a coma and in real time, it got me comfused. Before I read this book, I did not believe in heaven and afterlife. After i read this book, I am starting to believing in god and heaven. I enjoy the parts when he’s talking about his disease and other medical involved topics, which I think is very interesting.
All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot
Medical Memoir – 442 pages
All Creatures Great and Small is a memoir that regails memories from James Herriot’s life from after he earns his degree to his mariage and honeymoon. The first chapter jumps straight into one of his memories of calving dispelling the idea that all you need to know about veterinary practice is found in a classroom. In the next chapter, he starts from the memory of when he first interviews for his job. Everything falls into place shortly after. Being that the author comes from England, rich vocabulary and different spellings for words can be found. To me, this gave the book an almost fairytale-like or fanciful quality. He introduces many characters ranging from clients to colleagues and each is given a distinct personally that will draw emotion out of you, regardless if they appear constantly or have a singular appearance in the book. He flashes back to his years at school to hint at why he handles certain situations in certain ways. In summation, I loved this book and would love to continue on with the rest of his books. From the sweetness of his trusting clients to the irritating forgetfulness of his employer, I have enjoyed reading about his experiences.
Title : Animal Experimentation
Varieties of Authors, Edited By David M. Haugen
Genre : Medical Research
Page Length : 208
This book has really taught me many things that are based on experimentations. Reading through about; full of other people viewpoints on animal experimentations has gotten me thinking through many different perspectives on the practice of animal experimentations, the good and bad side to it too. I only recommend this book to someone who is willing to read in general and have an open-mind set to be able to accept opinions from authors, professors, scientists and other people who are similar in this criteria. Also, someone who has the capacity to be able to read from one speaker and the next paragraph will be a different speaking that will talk about something completely different. However, overall it was a great book to read and I can assure you that anybody will learn at least one thing in this book from professional medical researchers.
Shirley C, 11th
Smashed: Story of a drunken girlhood
Koren Zailckas
Autobiography
~340 pages
Koren grew up as the normal middle class girl, but she had a close friend that many didn’t know about or hated. Alcohol. She met alcohol at the age of 14. Many of us would consider this a young age but statistics shows that by 8th grade about 50% of them would have tried it. Most of them through peer pressure. Alcohol was her stress reliever, her happy pill. In college there would be on campus bars for her to get a drunk every night. She was not addicted to alcohol but an alcohol abuser. Soon she began to notice this unhealthy relationship she had with alcohol, slowly and gradually she tried to drink what was considered moderate.
I, personally liked this book. It might have been because I loved reading autobiographies and it was very relatable. The writer did an amazing job in keeping the reader interested. There are parts where she would get really mysterious and put many wild thoughts in the readers head then surprise them with another event. I wouldn’t consider this a medical book. It’s mainly about her experience with alcohol so you can’t really get any medical or scientific information out of this book.
Last Breath The Limits Of Adventure
Peter Stark
sports medicine
292 pages
Last Breath contains eleven stories of peoples adventures and their life or death situations. Stories include a snowboarder buried in an avalanche, a journalist left in a desert suffering from extreme dehydration, a scuba diver running out of air, and more. Each chapter begins with the story of an athlete or adventurer and their journey, it will then switch to the medical explanation of their situation. The author sometimes spends a long time talking about something that isn’t very important. Most of the stories are very exciting and provide good medical facts about these extreme scenarios.
Student: Francisco
Book Name: Hope In Hell
Author: Dan Bortolotti
Genre: Medical field
grade: 11th
Page length: 274
In 1971 M.S.F was founded in the believe that it would see no borders, M.S.F was founded by a group of doctors who were rebellious. M.S.F or Doctors Without Borders sends nearly 3,000 volunteers annually into different conflicts zones, refugee camps and other places where help might be of need of their service.
Many volunteers go into different places and many will experience death, kidnapping. In places like the Ukraine, Middle east were fighting has intensified aid workers in these places have been killed or held captive. In which in this book talks on how many workers come back from these places are now dealing with P.T.S.D due to the affects of them witnessing countless human rights laws broken, by soldiers and other armed groups.
I found it to be a great book, it explains how they live, and feel about working in this work of area. There are different stories in this book about different types of fields in M.S.F, each story in based on real stories of people who have been on the field. If you are interested in real conflicts that happened in the past and live to read about peoples experiences then its a good book for you. Hope in hell will not have you bored, it an interesting stories, that are truly amazing.
The Knife Man by Wendy Moore
Medical history
Pages- 341
Overall, this book is phenomenal. It’s fantastic. It tells the history from various sides, and doesn’t hide the gruesome, sexual, and deviant facts of history. Many books, especially history books, chose to hide many stories and versions of history that aren’t suitable for “young eyes”. Many people are denied the ability to hear all of history’s dark pasts, and this book brings them to light. It’s well written and uses vivid, descriptive language. The Knife Man explains, in depth, the squabbles and deviation from the social norms of the time period it’s set in (mid to late 1950’s) that had to come about to bring us our present medical miracles. Some of it’s appalling, but in all reality, knowledge is power. No matter what type of knowledge, whether it makes us squeamish or happy, is well worth knowing.
In the beginning, they had no anaesthetics and no real knowledge of how to get into the human body and fix things. People had no clue how diseases were spread, how fetuses developed, how the organs of animals and humans operated. Most of the medical theories of the 1950’s were insane. Sexual disease prevention was pretty much non-existent. This book gives a lot of insight into words, phrases, and medical practices that are in common use in our present time (2015).
The main people in this book, John and William Hunter, are two well written characters. They are described vividly and The Knife Man includes many stories from various persons. John Hunter is a man whom deviates from the social norms of his time to seek out surgical and physiological anomalies- to make advances in the medical fields. In a time when graves were robbed for illegal anatomy classes, when sexual diseases and hookers were abundant, and people shamed you for not relating anatomy to God in some way. It’s amazing how many medical advances were made in this era, most of the credit for those advances going to John Hunter.
There is so much information that is not allowed to be taught by teachers in public schools, because it’s deemed “inappropriate” or
“not child friendly”. If anything, we need more books like this integrated into our school system, it’s valuable knowledge.
Last Breath : Cautionary Tales from the Limits of Human Endurance
by Peter Stark
Sports & Medicine
292 Pages
Last Breath is a series of short stories involving people testing the limits of nature, and themselves. Every story has a dangerous scenario of people in life or death situations, some giving in to the natural forces, while others try to cheat death to the best of their ability. To go along with these exhilarating stories Stark incorporates science by describing not only what is going on around the characters, but inside of them. This makes these tales much more interesting, and makes them feel more realistic. Stark’s style of writing is very unique and that is why I would ultimately advise anyone to read Last Breath.
Aidan C.
11th Grade
Kyle Keegan
Chasing The High
Genre: Mental Health & Addiction, Substance Abuse
150 pages
Chasing The High kept my full attention and taught me things you just don’t learn about in a normal classroom. The story is about an average man in his adolescence living in upstate New York going through normal life when he starts using drugs in high school. he goes in depth about how his experimentation with drugs turned into him ending up completely homeless living in the streets on the brink of death. He tells about how his substance abuse completely wrecked his life, because the only thing he wanted was heroin. After many tries at rehabilitation, he finally finds a way of life that brings true happiness, and explains how he gets through it. I really enjoyed reading this book, and learned a lot about substance abuse and mental health. Kyle Keegan splits up the book into sections, jumping in and out of his personal experiences with his addiction, and the medical side of addiction as well.
Title: I Wasn’t Strong Like This When I Started Out: True Stories of Becoming a Nurse
Author: Various authors
Edited by: Lee Gutkind
Genre: Composition of medical essays and memoirs
Pages: 271
Summary: This book is a collection of true narratives written by different medical professionals. In the book the nurses recall their first births, their first deaths, and reflect on what gets them through long, demanding shifts, and keeps them in their profession. The stories reveal many voices from nurses at different stages in their careers: one nurse-in-training longs to be trusted with more “important” procedures, while another questions her ability to care for nursing home residents. There are stories written by nurse practitioners, emergency room nurses, and a home care case manager. The stories are all connected with the passion and the strength of the writers who struggle against burnouts and bureaucracy to serve their patients with skill, empathy, and strength. There are about twenty different stories varying in almost every medical profession. A quick read with well written stories, the writing style is very conversational which makes it feel like you know the author of the story on a personal level. I really like the way the book changes stories about every ten pages so it doesn’t get too boring. I recommend this book to anyone interested in becoming a nurse, it gives you a behind-the-scenes look at the daily life of working in the medical field.
Toan.T
Junior
Cancer by Joseph Panno, Ph.D
Medical Memoir -117 pages
The book “Cancer” mentions about the anatomy,risk factors, symptoms, and the treatment for cancer. Cancer is a disease in which abnormal cells divide uncontrollably and destroy cell tissues. For example, leukemia is the cancer that deal with blood cells. There are three different types of blood cells: red blood cell, white blood cell, and platelets. It’s common in children and sixty-five and older. Symptom includes fever, chills, loss of appetite, easy bleeding or bruising, and sweating. For diagnosis, the patient is examined for swell liver, spleen, and lymph nodes under arm. Also, there are different types of common treatments for cancer. Perhaps, Cryosurgery is deal with freezing tumors with liquid nitrogen. Radiotherapy uses radiation to destroy cancer cells. I really enjoyed the connection of cancer related to my life, and how it’s still current today. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in cancer and how it behaves. There are a lot of scientific term in the book, so it would be hard to understand .But If you are interested to become oncologist(a doctor who study about cancer) then this book is perfectly for you.
The book “The Psychopath Test” by Jon Ronson is a 272 page book excluding the acknowledgements at the end and is medical/psychiatry literature. The book is about Ronson’s introduction and, in a way, adventure with psychopathy, a mental condition where a person feels emotions and acts in a certain way which is completely different from people who are not psychopaths. A person who is not a psychopath might cringe if they see a dead body whereas a psychopath may move closer to inspect and have no reaction. They tend to be very arrogant and are very manipulative, so much more. More high power business men than you think are psychopaths. They love being successful. ANYONE could be a psychopath and no one would be able to tell. This is only one of the topics about psychopaths that Ronson covers. He learns how to identify psychopaths, he learns about how people have tried to treat them, he meets psychopaths, and does a lot more.
The book isn’t in chronological order, but that doesn’t matter much. Sometimes Ronson is explaining an encounter he had in the past, other times the chapters are in order of his adventures, which can go from Europe to America and back. There never seems to be a dull moment in this book. I was so shocked at some of the things I read, sometimes because it was amazing and awesome and sometimes because it was ridiculous, but in a good way. Overall, though, I learned a lot about psychopaths and it wasn’t boring at all. I really wish I could go more in depth about this book but then I would be spoiling more than I might already have. This is a really good book that could be read by all types of people. I highly recommend it. Even if you don’t like non-fiction, this is a good pick. The monster might not be a fire-breathing creature and might be a human, but it sure is a wicked one. How you take “wicked” is up to you.
Anyway, if you pick up this book, you won’t regret it. Have fun!
Title: Hallucinations
Author: Oliver Sacks
Hallucinations gives the reader a sense of how hallucinations work in certain situations and abnormalities. A wide variety of diseases and syndromes like CBS (Charles Bonnet Syndrome), narcolepsy, parkinsonism, epilepsy and more are written along with the relationship between those diseases and hallucinations. Under each disease are cases that were given to Oliver Sacks through patients and others who have experienced peculiar hallucinations. This book gives an inside look at how certain diseases develop due to hallucinations or how certain diseases can induce a hallucinogenic experience. Oliver Sacks takes these cases of patients and dives into the depths of the patients’ minds and brings out the reader’s curiosity and always keeps them wondering. If reading medical cases involving neurological abnormalities sounds interesting to you, Hallucinations may be worth looking into.
The Devils Flu -~300 pages
By: Pete Davies
*Medical History*
The Devil’s Flu is a corpus of individual major viral epidemics that affected the world, in the 19th and 20th century. The author goes into individual stories that happened during those times, and provides a lot of statistics and numbers, which really demonstrated the casualties. It starts off with the avian flu of Hong Kong, that striker fear into all of its neighboring countries. Then to the search, research, and development of antiviral medication. Overall the book was a seven out of ten. In order to fully understand and enjoy this book, the reader should have a decent understanding of various epidemics and history about them. The author focused a bit too much on specific dates, stats and numbers, which was unnecessary and repetitive and boring😴😴😴. However I could follow along. This book taught me a lot about virology, and has open the field of virology to me. 👍
Working Stiff by Judy Melinek and T.J. Mitchel
Medical Memoir — 258 Pages
Working Stiff is the memoir of Judy Melinek and how she came to be a medical examiner. It starts with her training as a surgeon, cracking under the pressure. Then, after a few calls to some colleagues, she moves to Los Angeles to study pathology and become a medical examiner. She then moves to New York to complete her two year residency. During her two years in New York, she autopsies 262 bodies and is even one of the medical examiners on hand for the aftermath of 9/11. Overall, I highly enjoyed the book. It was interesting from the beginning, starting out with her time as a surgeon. As the book progresses, she grows as a person, becoming more comfortable with herself and the job she is in. To me, it is a memoir of her growth as she trained in this job field, her becoming more comfortable with herself and her job, growing to be a better person overall. The book skips around in dates during the middle, which can get a little confusing, but it makes a big difference in the end when she uses the last few chapters to describe the aftermath of 9/11 and how she was involved in the attack, including her account of how the plane flew right above her head. I recommend this book for anyone who can deal with the description of death and how gruesome some deaths can be in the end. If you have a tough stomach and would like to know more about becoming a medical examiner, this book is perfect for you.