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Books Every Medical Students and Aspiring Medical Professionals Must Read.

Here are 5 of my top choices for you!

By Vaishnavi ShanojPublished 4 years ago 7 min read
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Books Every Medical Students and Aspiring Medical Professionals Must Read.
Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash

Aspiring to be a doctor, surgeon, or any other medical professional or even being a medical student not only requires academic proficiency but also real-life experiences. Although reading books may not be equivalent to gaining those experiences, they will surely be worth your while given that you will be exposed to someone else’s experiences. Experiences of someone who has gone through the steps that you are interested in taking. Now I am about to share 5 of my favorite medical memoirs for you to add to your reading list.

Carlos Zafon once said, “Books are mirrors: you only see in them, what you already have inside you.” This is something to take seriously. Think about it, we always pick up a book hoping to learn something new but then upon finishing the book you realize that the core of the book was so simple that you knew it all along. That is what makes me love reading. Over the course of my not very long life journey which is still continuing, I have picked up some amazing books which got me interested in the medical field, and here they are.

1. When the Air Hits Your Brain: Tales of Neurosurgery by Frank T. Vertosick Jr.

https://amzn.to/35mPCfh

When the Air Hits Your Brain is an exceptional piece of writing and I say that because, I have read a lot of surgeon’s memoirs and stories from them, but this one stood out to me. The way that he makes everything in the hospital environment and his personal life very real rather than very perfect is what is making me relate to him more than anything else. To me, he feels more like a friend or a brother and as I read the book I feel like we are having a conversation because of the writing style being very interactive.

What I love about the writing style is how he has incorporated both his conversations with the patients and other medical fellows as well as his thought process which helps me as in guides me through the whole situation as though I am really present there.

The next fact that made me love this book is that in each chapter he shares a patient and a challenging surgery or patient situation he encountered, but each comes with a lesson that the author learned from it. Rather than driving the book in a manner of advice, he drives it purely based on how he got out of it and what he personally achieved. Rather than sharing what he learned he makes it more personalized by sharing how he learned it. I hate to spoil but although the whole book made me go through a lot of emotional ups and downs as I read it, the ending touched my heart even more.

Throughout the whole book, he showcases his journey of coincidences that led him to become the neurosurgeon and the best one he became but at the end what happened was purely something I did not see coming and made me feel so sad for everything he has been through and finally has to deal with. He ends the book by saying that this book is evergreen as it still plays a significant role in today’s world and he is absolutely right about it.

2. Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande, Susanne Kuhlmann-Krieg

https://amzn.to/2QW6ssT

Atul Gawande is an American surgeon, writer, and public health researcher. He practices general and endocrine surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.

His book Complications takes his journey throughout his residency and he showcases his major milestones. I loved reading this book mainly because of the detailed surgical anecdotes he has written in them. And this might be odd but another fact that made me love this book is his honesty about his lack of experience and putting on the scrubs for performing surgery. He also talks about medical malpractices which made me question the whole medical system once again.

I truly believe that anybody who is into surgeries and can handle reading them, will for sure find this book to be a great read.

3. Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story by Ben Carson, Cecil Murphey

https://amzn.to/2ZsdxpR

This is a book that I see less on those videos where they give you biographies and memoir recommendations and I wonder why not. Of course, Dr. Ben Carson does not need any introduction for the person he is but to those who may not recall, here is a short description. Dr. Ben Carson is an American politician, public servant, author, and retired neurosurgeon who has served as the 17th United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development since 2017.

This book is his story from his childhood growing up with his brother and his single mom abandoned by his dad in Detroit, Michigan to become a world-renowned and respected neurosurgeon saving thousands of lives. Now this book is on my favorites for two reasons. One is that it is exceptionally good and a pretty short and easy to read and two being it was recommended to me by a very special person. As someone who is an introvert and highly picky in terms of friends, most of my connections are well-respected elders which also includes my lovely teachers. This book was first placed in my hand by my French teacher after we had a conversation about my love for neurosurgery. Although the time I had with this book filled with amazing life experiences of Ben Carson underlined by my teacher’s notes, was little I cherished every minute I spent with it solely because of how inspiring it was.

The stories in this book made me question what I was doing with the time I had and what kind of a person that I was becoming. The stories from his childhood all the way to achieving a successful career were very humbling and the struggles he went through served its purpose of reinforcing in my mind that anything is possible.

There is only one aspect of this book that I did not enjoy much and that was spirituality. Although it has worked for Dr. Ben Carson, what took me off was how he went on about hard work, and then all of a sudden he is talking about God and how God helped him. And that is absolutely fine by me given that I am a total fan of his work, I am just not a believer so to speak.

4. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

https://amzn.to/2ZebdCG

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi is by far the most emotionally tolling one on this list because of the fact that this book is a memoir about his life and illness battling stage IV metastatic lung cancer while being a neurosurgeon.

The book includes him recognizing the value of life and what is the point of living a long life. I am wishing to not say much about this book since it might spoil the experience for you. The best I could leave it at is that, if you can look at this book as a learning opportunity rather than looking at it as the heart-wrenching story of a great man, you will for sure learn great life lessons from this book which you will not be able to find elsewhere.

5. This Is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor by Adam Kay

https://amzn.to/32Z3DwE

This book by Dr. Adam Kay is an exception on this list because I have not read this book yet. And because of that reason, I am afraid I won’t be able to say much about it. You might be wondering, ‘Vaish, why is this book here if you haven’t read it?’. Well, it is here because I have heard some amazing things about this book.

This book is about a junior doctor's life experiences which he has written down in his journal and the book is also presented in that manner which makes me curious to read it as someone who journals myself. Now that is not the main reason for me wanting to read it. The main reason why it is on my reading list is mainly that I heard that Dr. Adam Kay is being very raw about how the medical system treats its workers and that is something I have never read about before.

Now that is basically all that I want to share with you. I hope you found the right book for you to spend time with this summer. There is something that I always love keeping in mind when I am reading and that is, reading is a fun process and the goal should not be to finish the book but rather to walk side by side with it.

And to those who are wondering who I am. I am Vaish, I am a junior high school student who also happens to be a neuroscience enthusiast who does a lot of research, learning, and reading in this subject. I make videos on neuroscience which you can go to by clicking right here.

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