Medical Histories & Biographies

We're not saying that there weren't any medical histories written before Rebecca Skloot's The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the story of a Southern tobacco farmer whose cells--taken without her knowledge--became one of the most important tools in medicine, but the runaway success of that 2010 title certainly has invited a wholesale expansion into the field.  If you want to know more about medical history or what it's like to be a doctor (whether in the wilderness or in a hospital), the library catalog has ample titles for you to choose from!  Here's a sampling:

Living and Dying in Brick City: An E.R. Doctor Returns Home by Sampson Davis with Lisa Frazier Page

One Doctor: Close Calls, Cold Cases, and the Mysteries of  Medicine by Brendan Reilly

What Doctors Feel: How Emotions Affect the Practice of Medicine by Danielle Ofri

JFK's Secret Doctor: The Remarkable Life of Medical Pioneer and Legendary Rock Climber Hans Kraus by Susan E. Schwartz

God's Hotel: A Doctor, A Hospital, and A Pilgrimage to the Heart of  Medicine by Victoria Sweet

County: Life, Death and Politics at Chicago's Public Hospital by David A. Ansell

Blood Work: A Tale of Medicine and Murder in the Scientific Revolution by Holly Tucker

Intern: A Doctor's Initiation by Sandeep Jauhar

In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor's Journey in the Saudi Kingdom by Qanta A. Ahmed

Mountain Rescue Doctor: Wilderness Medicine in the Extremes of Nature by Christopher Van Tilburg

Strange Medicine: A Shocking History of Real Medical Practices Through the Ages by Nathan Belofsky

Country of Ash: A Jewish Doctor in Poland, 1939-1945 by Edward Reicher

The Photographer by Emmanuel Guibert, Didier Lefèvre, Frédéric Lemercier  [into war-torn Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders]

Doctors of Medicine in New Mexico: A History of Health and Medical Practice, 1886-1986 by Jake W. Spidle, Jr

Revolutionary Medicine: The Founding Fathers and Mothers in Sickness and in Health by Jeanne E. Abrams

Kill or Cure: An Illustrated History of Medicine by Steve Parker

The Medical Book: From Witch Doctors to Robot Surgeons - 250 Milestones in the History of Medicine by Clifford A. Pickover

Witches, Midwives & Nurses: A History of Women Healers by Barbara Ehrenreich & Deirdre English 

The Poisoner's Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York by Deborah Blum

Frontier Medicine: From the Atlantic to the Pacific, 1492-1941 by David Dary

The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine by Anne Harrington

Impotence: A Cultural History by Angus McLaren

Medic!: How I Fought World War II with Morphine, Sulfa, and Iodine Swabs by Robert J. Franklin