Books

Books are an integral and often very expensive part of any student's education. They serve as a method of relaying information in a pre-set format to the student. Textbooks can be very pricey and you may wonder why they charge so much. A bit of advice that I would pass on to anybody would be to use half.com to purchase and sell textbooks so that we, as students, can take the monopoly out of the hands of our campus bookstores and spread the wealth amongst those who need it...the students!

In this post I will pass on a few of the books which have served me well in my years as a pre-health sciences student. These are primarily books about M.D.s in their surgical residencies/internships/attending years but they give great accounts of the initial immersion into the often chaotic and confusing sea of medicine. There are many books out there that one can read to prepare for a career in medicine and/or to get an idea of the daily life of a medical professional but these are my personal favorites.

Each book will include a link for purchase at half.com because I believe books should be cheap and accessible to all. (Note: I am not selling any of my books, I like to keep them so this isn't a scam to sell my things.)

The House of God, by Samuel Shem M.D.

The House of God is my personal favorite in the realm of medical books. This is an account of one man's Internal Medicine internship in the "House of God" better known as Beth-Israel Hospital Boston, MA (the Harvard Medical School teaching hospital). This is the most comical of the books I will share in this post and a great read.

Better and Complications, by Atul Gawande M.D., MPH

Both of these books by Atul Gawande should be read back to back but in no particular order. These books look at the good and bad sides of medicine and where mistakes happen in between. Being a scholar in public health, Gawande analyzes medicine with a macro-level approach to examine the things that have failed in medicine. These two books are great reads and given a very outside>in approach and seem to me to be a manifesto of a man who wants to be Surgeon-General...

When the Air Hits Your Brain, by Frank Vertosick M.D.

This is my second favorite of the medical books because it involves my medical passion, Neurosurgery. This book is more of a straight-forward look at the practice with little about the author's personal life (unlike the next book) and more about the molding of a Neurosurgeon and the trials and tribulations that come along with it. I would recommend this book to anyone looking to pursue a career in Neuro.

Hot Lights, Cold Steel, by Michael J. Collins M.D.

 "Hot Lights" is a great example of a surgical-residency story told through the eyes of the one living through it. Collins gives his account of the Orthopedic Surgery residency process at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. He gets through this time while attempting to raise his ever-growing family (which ends up being 12 children!) by working through sleep moonlighting at an ER then driving his quickly deteriorating care back 50 miles to do a 36 hr. shift at Mayo. This man is a true testament of perseverance through passion for your craft. Great read with tons of info on his personal life through the whole experience.

Last but not least, the Bible of human anatomy:

Atlas of Human Anatomy, by Frank H. Netter M.D.

The "Atlas" is in my personal opinion, the best anatomy book out there and it is full of beautifully detailed pictures of all aspects of human anatomy. This is a must have for any student looking to pursue graduate level medical education.

Enjoy!