The Best Medical Biographies & Memoirs 2024

1. Burl : Journalism Giant and Medical Trailblazer (Hardcover)

The riveting biography of Burl Osborne, former chairman of The Associated Press and publisher of The Dallas Morning News, who waged and won one of the last great newspaper wars in the U.S. Burl is the story of one man's unlikely rise from the coal mines of Appalachia to the pinnacle of journalism. After being diagnosed with a fatal kidney disease as a child, Burl Osborne pioneered home dialysis treatment and became the 130th person to undergo a live kidney transplant in 1966--then an unproven, high-risk operation. While managing his challenging illness, Burl distinguished himself early as a writer and reporter with The Associated Press, eventually rising to the top of the wire service's executive ranks. Then, against the advice of his colleagues and the newspaper's own doctors, he sought an even greater challenge: joining The Dallas Morning News to lead the fight in one of America's last great newspaper wars. Throughout his life and career, he garnered respect from business and political leaders, reporters, editors, and publishers around the country. Burl thrusts readers into the improbable and remarkable life of a man at the forefront of both medicine and the golden age of journalism.

The riveting biography of Burl Osborne, former chairman of The Associated Press and publisher of The Dallas Morning News, who waged and won one of the last great newspaper wars in the U.S. Burl is the story of one man’s unlikely rise from the coal mines of Appalachia to the pinnacle of journalism. After being diagnosed with a fatal kidney disease as a child, Burl Osborne pioneered home dialysis treatment and became the 130th person to undergo a live kidney transplant in 1966—then an unproven, high-risk operation. While managing his challenging illness, Burl distinguished himself early as a writer and reporter with The Associated Press, eventually rising to the top of the wire service’s executive ranks. Then, against the advice of his colleagues and the newspaper’s own doctors, he sought an even greater challenge: joining The Dallas Morning News to lead the fight in one of America’s last great newspaper wars. Throughout his life and career, he garnered respect from business and political leaders, reporters, editors, and publishers around the country. Burl thrusts readers into the improbable and remarkable life of a man at the forefront of both medicine and the golden age of journalism.

2. Abomination of Desolation

Abomination of Desolation

Abomination of Desolation (Paperback)

3. Atria Espanol: Muchísimo más (So Much More Spanish Edition) : Las conmovedoras memorias de mi encuentro con el amor, la lucha contra la adversidad y la definición de la vida en mis propios términos (Paperback)

Muchísimo más combina lo mejor de La última lección y Un momento extraordinario en este relato conmovedor de cómo Zulema Arroyo Farley, La Médium Latina, vive su vida al máximo, rehusando permitir que una forma rara de cáncer o cualquier otra enfermedad crónica determine su destino. En la cuarta cita de Zulema con su ahora esposo, la nueva pareja creó una "Lista de vida" llena de aventuras que compartirían juntos, incluyendo aventuras de paracaidismo, viajes lujosos alrededor del mundo y como recolectores de vino, viajando a las regiones vitivinícolas para conocer a sus productores de vino favoritos. Sumamente exitosa y enamorada, Zulema estaba viviendo un cuento de hadas. Pero, a dos años de casarse, la Lista de vida tomó una urgencia sorprendente cuando le diagnosticaron sarcoma, una forma de cáncer extremadamente rara e incurable, junto a una serie de otras condiciones médicas complejas y misteriosas. Zulema, impávida ante los desafíos de su salud, confió en sí misma y en quienes la rodeaban para reunir el coraje necesario para enfrentar sus enfermedades de frente, sin olvidar nunca acoger el espíritu de la Lista de vida con cada día que pasa. A pesar del dolor físico y mental insoportable, los reveses y las luchas personales, Zulema está decidida a experimentar cada segundo de la vida. En este nuevo capítulo, ha revelado un secreto que había conservado toda la vida: Ella es una médium psíquico. Después de años viendo, oyendo y sintiendo presencias que otros no podían ver, ella ha aprendido a confiar en ellos en sus momentos más difíciles y utiliza su don en servicio de todo a quien le concierne. Sus guías espirituales y sabiduría de la vida ayudarán a sus lectores a acoger su visión más importante: Siempre hay mucho más que vivir, que amar, que aprender y que crear.

Muchísimo más combina lo mejor de La última lección y Un momento extraordinario en este relato conmovedor de cómo Zulema Arroyo Farley, La Médium Latina, vive su vida al máximo, rehusando permitir que una forma rara de cáncer o cualquier otra enfermedad crónica determine su destino. En la cuarta cita de Zulema con su ahora esposo, la nueva pareja creó una “Lista de vida” llena de aventuras que compartirían juntos, incluyendo aventuras de paracaidismo, viajes lujosos alrededor del mundo y como recolectores de vino, viajando a las regiones vitivinícolas para conocer a sus productores de vino favoritos. Sumamente exitosa y enamorada, Zulema estaba viviendo un cuento de hadas. Pero, a dos años de casarse, la Lista de vida tomó una urgencia sorprendente cuando le diagnosticaron sarcoma, una forma de cáncer extremadamente rara e incurable, junto a una serie de otras condiciones médicas complejas y misteriosas. Zulema, impávida ante los desafíos de su salud, confió en sí misma y en quienes la rodeaban para reunir el coraje necesario para enfrentar sus enfermedades de frente, sin olvidar nunca acoger el espíritu de la Lista de vida con cada día que pasa. A pesar del dolor físico y mental insoportable, los reveses y las luchas personales, Zulema está decidida a experimentar cada segundo de la vida. En este nuevo capítulo, ha revelado un secreto que había conservado toda la vida: Ella es una médium psíquico. Después de años viendo, oyendo y sintiendo presencias que otros no podían ver, ella ha aprendido a confiar en ellos en sus momentos más difíciles y utiliza su don en servicio de todo a quien le concierne. Sus guías espirituales y sabiduría de la vida ayudarán a sus lectores a acoger su visión más importante: Siempre hay mucho más que vivir, que amar, que aprender y que crear.

4. Pre-Owned Brave New Medicine: A Doctor's Unconventional Path to Healing Her Autoimmune Illness (Paperback 9781684032051) by Cynthia Li, Arlie Russell Hochschild

9781684032051. Pre-Owned: Good condition. Trade paperback. Language: English. Pages: 272. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 272 p. In this revelatory memoir, doctor Cynthia Li shares the truth about her struggle with a disabling autoimmune illness, the limitations of Western medicine, and what sufferers need to know to truly begin healing-mind, body, and spirit. Cynthia Li had it all: a successful career in medicine, a loving marriage, children on the horizon. But it all came crashing down when, within months of having her first child, she developed mysterious symptoms that baffled her doctors. After two years of "normal" test results with no relief from Western medicine, Li was no longer well enough to practice. Her quest for health became a solo odyssey-she had to find a way to heal herself. Brave New Medicine details the disabling autoimmune crisis that forced Li to question her own medical training and embrace the integrative principles of functional medicine to unlock her body's innate healing capacity . With the insight of an MD who was able to dissect and heal the root causes of her own autoimmune illness-one that conventional medicine said was incurable and irreversible-Li relates her story, including the emotional and spiritual shifts that occurred while investigating her true self, beyond illness and the conditions of the body. Millions of people are affected by chronic health conditions in the United States. But while issues such as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS/ME) and fibromyalgia are receiving more and more attention, patients struggling with these mysterious autoimmune conditions are still dismissed by doctors and scientists in the established medical community. This is the harsh reality that doctor-turned- "difficult patient" Li faced firsthand when she developed autoimmune thyroiditis and chronic hypothyroidism (or Hashimoto's). Drawing on ancient healing arts, cutting-edge science, evolutionary biology, and the power of laughter and pleasure, this memoir offers support, validation, and a new perspective for anyone dealing with chronic illness or another health crisis. By sharing her own autoimmunity struggle, Li reveals the insider knowledge you need to start your own healing journey.

Pre-Owned Brave New Medicine: A Doctor's Unconventional Path to Healing Her Autoimmune Illness (Paperback 9781684032051) by Cynthia Li, Arlie Russell Hochschild

5. Henry Kaplan and the Story of Hodgkin's Disease (Hardcover)

Henry Kaplan and the Story of Hodgkin's Disease is the first account of a remarkable man who changed the face of cancer therapy and the history of a once fatal, now curable, cancer.

In the 1950s, ninety-five percent of patients with Hodgkin's disease, a cancer of lymph tissue which afflicts young adults, died. Today most are cured, due mainly to the efforts of Dr. Henry Kaplan. Henry Kaplan and the Story of Hodgkin's Disease explores the life of this multifaceted, internationally known radiation oncologist, called a "saint" by some, a "malignant son of a bitch" by others. Kaplan's passion to cure cancer dominated his life and helped him weather the controversy that marked each of his innovations, but it extracted a high price, leaving casualties along the way. Most never knew of his family struggles, his ill-fated love affair with Stanford University, or the humanitarian efforts that imperiled him. Today, Kaplan ranks as one of the foremost physician-scientists in the history of cancer medicine. In this book Charlotte Jacobs gives us the first account of a remarkable man who changed the face of cancer therapy and the history of a once fatal, now curable, cancer. She presents a dual drama —the biography of this renowned man who called cancer his "Moby Dick" and the history of Hodgkin's disease, the malignancy he set out to annihilate. The book recounts the history of Hodgkin's disease, first described in 1832: the key figures, the serendipitous discoveries of radiation and chemotherapy, the improving cure rates, the unanticipated toxicities. The lives of individual patients, bold enough to undergo experimental therapies, lend poignancy to the successes and failures. Visit the author's website.