Interesting and worthwhile (for Interviews) books to read

[Guest MrNeuroscience]

Seeing as how there is so much time between interviews (knock-on-wood) and now, I have found myself going to the bookstore (which I never really did before) and picking out books that are not only interesting in their own right, but would also be helpful in an interview at almost any medschool. I was hoping to start a list of books any of us have found particularly well written, interesting and maybe even useful with med as a topic, or anything else for that matter, any favourites, or books to stay away from... So I'll start:

 

-Patients First (2004) By Dr Terrence Montague - About closing the healthcare gap in Canada.

-Health Care Ethics in Canada (2004) By Baylis et al. - About, well, Health Care Ethics in Canada.

-America (The Book) By Jon Stewart- Because he is a political-satirical-genius.

-Siddhartha - The early "story" of Buddha, I forget the author now though.

 

Happy Reading

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi there,

 

A definite addition to your list (which is perennially mentioned as a must-read for interviews): "Doing Right" by Hebert. This book provides a great framework for understanding and reasoning through ethical issues in medicine.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest peachy]

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is a great read in general; for interviews, it might be helpful because it's all about how cultural differences can affect treating patients.

[Guest coastalslacker]

LOL! Can someone explain how/why Siddhartha has become such a common pre-interview read??? I know a few people who NEVER read for interest, who read this book before interviews a couple years ago, and I've often seen it seen suggested in forums. Is it because its so short and simple? Is it the appeal of buddhism in a neatly composed package? If you're going to read some Hesse, read something with teeth like Steppenwolf.

[Guest MrNeuroscience]

You know what? I have no idea why it is such a popular pre-interview read. I added it because it was a well written book, that was extremely interesting (and somehow useful in everyday life) but I also read it in about 2 days (maybe 1?) so for all those interview-waiters that still have a course load to contend with I thought it could be good (plus it's an international bestseller)... But have you read it?

[Guest Gavanshir]

Siddharta, because it's an introduction to spiritualism. Unless you are religious, you'll probably need some form of spritualism or belief system to get yourself through medical school and the relative hardships.

[Guest Gavanshir]

1. The House of God

2. The Diagnosis of Acute Abdomen in Rhyme.

4. When the Air Hits Your Brain: Tales of Neurosurgery

5. A Case of Need

6.Francis Conley- Walking out on the Boys

7.Sherwin B. Nuland- The Wisdom of the Body (also titled "How

We Live)

8.Sherwin B. Nuland- How We Die

9.The man who mistook his wife for a hat, by Oliver Sacks

10.The strange case of the walking cadaver, by nancy butcher

12.timeline, by michael crichton

13.The Intern Blues by Robert Marion, M.D.

14.Just Here Trying to Save a Few Lives by Pamela Grim, M.D.

15. The Scalpel and the Silver Bear, Lori Alvord, MD

16. Health and Healing, Andrew Weil, MD

18. Darshak Sangavi, "A Map of the Child"

19.Terminal, Robin Cook

20. The Lost Art of Healing : Practicing Compassion in Medicine

by Bernard Lown

24. the elegant universe by brian greene

27. Walk On Water: Inside an Elite Pediatric Surgical Unit by Michael Ruhlman

28. The Language of Cells: A Doctor and His Patients by Spencer Nadler

29. Becoming a Doctor by Melvin Konner

30. The Ditchdigger's Daughters by Yvonne S. Thornton, MD

31. The Dressing Station by Jonathan Kaplan

32. Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World, by Tracy Kidder

33. Delivering Doctor Amelia: The Story of a Gifted Young Obstetrician's Mistake and the Psychologist Who Helped Her, Dan Shapiro

34. Surviving the Extremes, A Doctor's Journey to the Limits of Human Endurance. Kenneth Kamler

35: Travels and/or Five Patients, by Michael Crichton

36: Driving mR. Albert, by Michael Paterniti.

37: On Doctoring, edited by Richard Reynolds and John Stone.

38: The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon

39: The Ultimate Guide To Choosing a Medical Specialty by Brian, Md. Freeman

40. Letters to a Young Doctor

41: Pathologies of Power - Paul Farmer's latest, following up #32

44. Kitchen Table Wisdom by Dr. Rachel Remen counsels cancer patients

45. Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom by Dr. Christiane Northrup -very good reference book and very informative

46. Tuesdays with Morrie

53. King of Hearts: The True Story of the Maverick Who Pioneered Open Heart Surgery

54. A Not Entirely Benign Procedure: Four Years as a Medical Student by Perri Klass

55. young "what my patients taught me" - great for anyone who wants to go to UW

56. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down - Anne Fadiman (sp?)

 

 

I hope you have a loootta time

[Guest frenchfrog]

For those of us who don't have alot of time,

could you recommend the top 3 books from your long list?

(Maybe say what's so valuable about your top choices)

[Guest Gavanshir]

Sorry but instead I'll recommend that you take each title that interests you and put it in Amazon.com to get reviews and comments about the book. That's how I chose which ones to read. I'm in the early chapters of "Mountains Beyond Mountains" right now and its an inspiring read. It's about a Harvard physician who spends a significant portion of the year at a clinic in Haiti. It goes to show you how one person can truely make a difference. That doesn't sum up the whole book though.

[Guest leafs123]

Hi all,

 

Can someone please recommend some books about the Canadian Healthcare in general - logistics, politics, economics, outlook, etc.

 

Thanks,

 

leafs123

[Guest coastalslacker]

Maude Barlow, chair for the council of canadians (lefty public advocacy group) "wrote" a book about the public/private debate a few years ago-it's pretty decent, but clearly biased. I haven't read many books from that list, but have gotten through a couple:

 

1. House of God-Samuel Shem-funny! idealistic keeners will deny it, cynics will like it, a good chunk of doctors have read it so you could have a dialogue instead of an interview monologue ("I read this really obscure book about cannabilistic rituals and incidence of kuru in the tribes of....blah blah). About 300 pages, I think.

 

2. Travels, Michael chricton-has a bit of medical stuff in it at the beginning, but it's not as if this guy writes good books anyways. Smart though, Rhodes scholar, graduated from Harvard meds after an anthro degree, then decided he didn't want to be a doctor (after writing a best selling novel).

 

3. Tuesday's with morrie - who hasn't read this book? Good because at least one of your interviewers will have read it, and it is in the public consciousness. Not a bad book, but I didn't find it as profound as others seem to think it is.

 

4. A not entirely benign procedure...., peri klass - tales of her time as a medical student at harvard. Average, not a great read.

 

Some better books are "Complications: A Surgeon's notes on an imperfect science" by Atul Gawande, and "Emergency Doctor" by Lewis Goldfrank. Personal recommendation for a novel is "Scar Tissue" by Michael Ignatieff. By one of Canada's premier intellectuals (prof emeritus at Harvard, often touted in the papers as future candidate for the grits), it explores Alzheimer's disease and is extremely well-written.

 

and it's short........just for all you hooked on phonics and/or stressed out kids.

[Guest ploughboy]

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Three books, huh?

 

1) I second Kirsteen's recommendation of _Doing Right_. It helped me through the ethical questions during my interview last year.

 

2) As for Canadian Healthcare I would recommend the Romanow Report, and maybe the Kirby Report. If you don't read both reports in their entirety, do at least read the executive summaries. Although I can't talk about specific UWO interview questions, I think it's safe to say that reading Romanow helped me answer some of the questions I was asked.

 

Since it's a very timely issue you will probably also want to read up on the Chaoulli Decision, and be able to offer an opinion one way or another about it. If you're a real policy wonk, the CMA website has a pile of position papers on various other healthcare topics.

 

3) Read something fun that has nothing at all to do with medicine. Show the panel that you have a life!

 

Just my two cents...

 

pb

 

 

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[Guest DancingDoc]

I have to add my favorite book to the to-read list:

Blindness by Jose Saramago

Really intriguing book and it makes you think.... definitely worth looking at

[Guest DancingDoc]

Almost forgot another one of my favorites reads: My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

Really good book for considering the ethics surrounding discussion on donor organs, especially from immediate family members. In this case the parents have another daughter to be a donor for their older daughter. Really controversial read, and very moving. I nearly cried, lol :b

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hey there,

 

Another good book which I've been reading this weekend: Atwood's "Penelopiad". It's an imaginative piece of writing that offers a different take, among other things, on the events surrounding Odysseus' Odyssey.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest patentforamenovale]

For an inspirational read on what life is as a doctor, read "Complications: A surgeons' notes on an imperfect Science" by Atul Gawande, who is a surgeon at Harvard.

[Guest supa76]

House of God is definitely a good, funny, healthily cynical book, although it is based on 70's US medicine.(read: freelove.. ahhh yeah). I read it twice, just because it was so interesting reading about the students' first experiences on the wards. I wouldn't recommend the sequel "Mount Misery" however, as its really just reiterating the first book 20 years later, and is not very good. Although perhaps if you're interested in psych, it might be more interesting for you.

 

I picked up "Code Blue" last year from Chapters, mainly because it had to do with Canadian healthcare. Its pretty Rightist (i.e. praise from Stephen Harper on the back cover!), supporting the idea of user fees and being unjustly positive about US healthcare (in terms of its coverage of the poor), but it is a good way to get ideas about a different side of the debate.

 

Favourite book? "You shall know our Velocity" by Dave Eggers. Really laugh-out-loud funny, and awesome prose writing.

 

Any Tom Robbins fans out there? I just finished "Fierce Invalids...". Wasn't so impressed as with some of his other works. The philosophy started getting a bit flaky towards the end, but witty and entertaining nonetheless.

 

As for Canadian authors, I just read both Wayson Choy books. Good for (future) Vancouverites.. a history of the Chinese community in Vancouver entwined in a really well written story.

 

"A Short History of Nearly Everything", Bill Bryson. Way too much talk about rocks and moss classifications, but once those parts are skipped, the biology, evolution and space sections are pretty interesting, if not overly simplified. I didnt like it as much as the people who recommended it to me did.

 

Thanks for all the above suggestions.. as perhaps indicated by the amount of reading I've been doing above, I've got too much time on my hands this Fall and welcome ideas for good books. I'm stuck in Geneva for 3 months, perhaps the most boring city in Europe. Thankfully Italy is a short train ride away...

 

supa

[Guest DancingDoc]

Another great read that really makes you think:

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Not about medicine but really makes you consider human relationships and stereotypes.

[Guest geekpunk]

So once I finished destroying my Pharmacology Final Exam this morning I was about to hop on the bus and go home for a month-long vacation of egg nog, Christmas cheer, and overplayed TV Christmas movies, when I remembered to scope out the library for books on Health Care Ethics to prep for interviews.

 

So I picked up "Health-Care Ethics in Canada" and "Doing Right". Browsing through both, "Doing Right" seems straightforward and practical. "Health Care Ethics in Canada" seems a bit advanced but has a lot of policy stuff and pretty much the entire Romanow Report. Looking forward to reading both of these over the break.

 

Thanks to everybody on here for the suggestions,

 

Happy holidays

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hey there,

 

Another non-meds book that could be added to the mix is "The Penelopiad" by Atwood. It's an interesting take on the Iliad and quite a good, entertaining and speedy read.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest DancingDoc]

I've just begun an amazing read. It's called "When Rabbit Howls" by The Troops for Truddi Chase. The Troops is how her mutiple "persons" refer to themselves (i.e. she has dissociative personality disorder). The book is an account of the psychotherapy process the patient is undergoing at the time of writing as a sorting out process for her multiple personalities who developed as a result of severe childhood abuse. It is a cooperative process by all the personalities. There are at least 92 separate personalities that the patient encompasses. There is also an intro and epilogue written by her therapist that gives some really useful background info. I definitely suggest this book to anyone.

[Guest Jochi1543]

"Doctor Generic will see you now" by Oscar London, MD (pseudonym) is a good and humorous book about HMOs and managed care. While this is obviously a US phenomenon, this book clearly outlines the disadvantages of such healthcare system and the real beneficiaries of it, which makes it easy to explain why Canadian healthcare system is superior to the US in many aspects.

 

Another book by Oscar London that is funny, though less politicized and relevant, is "Kill as few patients as possible, and 56 (or however many, I don't remember ) essays about how to be the world's best doctor." It's a collection of short humorous essays outlining his interactions with patients, colleagues, fellow medical students, pharmaceutical sales agents, etc.

[Guest smurfette99]

Another good one re: euthanasia (fiction) is called "mercy" by jodi picoult (same author as "my sister's keeper" which someone else already mentioned)

She is an amazing writer, and the issues are relevant