Though I haven’t read Atul Gawande’s most famous book, Complications, I read Better a year or so ago and found it compelling and thoughtful. As a result, I was intrigued by the prospect of his most recent book, Being Mortal, about medicine and end-of-life issues, including the story of Gawande’s father’s battle with cancer. Yet, I put off reading it for a bit because a book about death and dying isn’t exactly something you eagerly jump into. However, once I saw it on the best-seller […]
Every Nurse Has a Poop Story or 12
This is not a book for everyone to read and enjoy. I mean, you can still pick it up and peruse even if you aren’t, were, or are going to become a nurse because you’re a grown-ass adult who can make his or her own decisions and who the fuck am I to tell you what to do? You might not really get as much out of it as someone who does have some investment in the nursing field, though. This book goes from time […]
Brain on Fire
Brain on Fire is the memoir of Susannah Cahalan, a New York Post reporter who at the age of twenty-four began experiencing symptoms of psychosis. These ranged from episodes of paranoia to personality changes to more neurological findings such as grand mal seizures and visual changes. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and alcohol withdrawal by different professionals until finally being admitted to the hospital following a series of seizures. Cahalan herself has little memory of the time after this point; she reconstructed most of […]
Not What I Was Looking For
I work in public health emergency preparedness, so this book about the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic has been on my to-read list for a while. People rave about it; even though it’s about 450 pages of small print, I was ready to dive into it because I already have an interest in this sort of thing, I have some background in working on preparing for a pandemic, and I’ve found that histories of diseases and other medical issues (“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,” “The Ghost […]
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