Medical Memoirs

The technology invented by psychiatrist Robert G. Heath at Tulane University in 1950s and 60s has been described as one of "the most controversial yet largely undocumented experiments in US history" - controversial to us because Heath's patients included incarcerated convicts and gay men to be 'cured' of their sexual preference; controversial in its day because his work was allegedly part of MKUltra, the CIA's notorious "mind control" project. As a result, Heath's cutting-edge research and legacy were put under lock and key, buried in Tulane's archives.

As a young man, Albert Schweitzer seemed destined for greatness. His immense talent and fortitude propelled him to a place as one of Europe's most renowned philosophers, theologians, and musicians in the early 20th century. Yet Schweitzer shocked his contemporaries by forsaking worldly success and embarking on an epic journey into the wilds of French Equatorial Africa, vowing to serve as a lifelong physician to "the least of these" in a mysterious land rife with famine, sickness, and superstition.

There Plant Eyes probes the ways in which blindness has shaped our ocularcentric culture, challenging deeply ingrained ideas about what it means to be “blind”. For millennia, blind­ness has been used to signify such things as thoughtlessness (“blind faith”), irrationality (“blind rage”), and unconsciousness (“blind evolution”). But at the same time, blind people have been othered as the recipients of special powers as compensation for lost sight (from the poetic gifts of John Milton to the heightened senses of the comic book hero Daredevil).

A decade after World War II, there was still no such thing as open-heart surgery, and yet half a million Americans were dying from heart disease every year. After the first daring operation in 1954 and through the next three decades, five heroic surgeons braved the scorn of their peers, withstood fierce desperation, and faced possible death in order to devise procedures that would save overwhelming numbers of those doomed children and provide hope for a new life to all manner of heart-failing individuals.

In ADHD and Me, he tells about the next 12 years as he learns to live with both the good and bad sides of life with ADHD. Blake's memoir offers, for the first time, a young person's account of what it's like to live and grow up with this common condition. Join Blake as he foils bullies, confronts unfair teachers, struggles with distraction and disorganization on exams, and goes sailing out-of-bounds and ends up with a boatload of spiders.

For two decades, Dr. Danielle Ofri has cared for patients at Bellevue, the oldest public hospital in the country and a crossroads for the world's cultures. In Medicine in Translation she introduces us, in vivid, moving portraits, to her patients, who have braved language barriers, religious and racial divides, and the emotional and practical difficulties of exile in order to access quality health care.

I really need people to understand the reason behind me writing this book about my grandmother Henrietta Lacks. For those who have never heard of her, she is the first human whose cell line was able to grow in culture; her cells were unlike any other cells. While others cells would die, Henrietta Lacks cells doubled every 20 to 24 hours. She has contributed to the medical field in ways that no other cell line has done. HeLa cells has helped with the polio vaccine, gene mapping, in vitro fertilization, sensitivity to tape, dental, and even used in the cosmetic field.

Issa Ibrahim's memoir details in searing prose his development of severe mental illness leading to a horrific family tragedy, his acquittal by reason of insanity, and his subsequent commission to a mental hospital for nearly 20 years. Written with great verve and immediacy, The Hospital Always Wins paints a detailed picture of a broken mental-health system but also reveals the power of art, when nurtured in a benign environment, to provide a resource for recovery.

In this boldly optimistic debut memoir, Hayley Arceneaux details how she overcame seemingly insurmountable odds to grab hold of a life greater than she’d ever imagined. With her signature upbeat messaging, Arceneaux recounts her odyssey, from her cancer diagnosis at age ten and the yearlong treatment that inspired her goal of working with pediatric cancer patients, to living through her father’s terminal cancer diagnosis, to getting her lifelong dream job at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital as a physician assistant.

When clinical psychologist Sarah Mandel was pregnant with her second child, she began preparing for her maternity leave, juggling the demands of her soon-to-be-new baby with the needs of her patients. Noticing a lump in her breast, she assumed it was most likely a clogged milk duct. But a biopsy revealed it was not. When she went into labor, she learned that she had Stage Four cancer—devastating news that forced her to confront terminal illness as she was bringing new life into the world.

Skin cancer is this country's most common cancer, and melanoma the deadliest form of it. Richard Scolyer, together with his colleagues at Melanoma Institute Australia, has dedicated years to groundbreaking research and succeeded in transforming even the most advanced cases of melanoma into a largely curable disease. Then last year, at the peak of his life, Richard was devastated when he was diagnosed with an incurable brain cancer.

A healing resource that blends practical plant-based knowledge with spiritual reconnection to show how a respect for and communion with our natural world guides us toward healing.

The controversial Emanuel Revici, M.D., made the bones grow back in cancer patients, and restored health to AIDS patients as well as drug addicts and alcoholics. His medicines lifted debilitating migraines in as little as three minutes. Revici's reward? He was attacked and ostracized by the best. JAMA published false reports about his work. The American Cancer Society blasted him time and again. Meanwhile, word of mouth brought new patients to see him for decades.

Cheney flips mental illness inside out, exposing the visceral story of the struggles, stigma, relationship dilemmas, treatments, and recovery techniques she and others have encountered. Sometimes humorous, sometimes harrowing, Modern Madness is the ultimate owner's manual on mental illness, breaking this complex subject down into readily understandable concepts like instructions for use, troubleshooting, maintenance, and warranties.

Lauren Marks was 27 when an aneurysm ruptured in her brain and left her fighting for her life. She woke up in a hospital soon after with serious deficiencies to her reading, speaking, and writing abilities, and an unfamiliar diagnosis: aphasia. This would be shocking news for anyone, but Lauren was a voracious reader, an actress, director, dramaturg, and pursuing her PhD. At any other period of her life, this diagnosis would have been a devastating blow. But she woke up...different.

When celebrated neuropsychologist Paul Broks' wife died of cancer, it sparked a journey of grief and reflection that traced a lifelong attempt to understand how the brain gives rise to the soul. The result of that journey is a gorgeous, evocative meditation on fate, death, consciousness, and what it means to be human. The Darker the Night, the Brighter the Stars weaves a scientist’s understanding of the mind - its logic, its nuance, how we think about what makes a person - with a poet’s approach to humanity, that crucial and ever-elusive why.

From his early years with his loving Jewish family to the horrors of Auschwitz to his life as a Nobel Prize-winning writer, Elie Wiesel tells his story. Passionate and poignant, All Rivers Run to the Sea is an unforgettable book of love and rage, doubt and faith, despair and trust, and ultimately, of wisdom.

Heroines of Mercy Street tells the true stories of the nurses at Mansion House, the Alexandria, Virginia, mansion turned wartime hospital and setting for the new PBS drama Mercy Street. Among the Union soldiers, doctors, wounded men from both sides, freed slaves, politicians, speculators, and spies who passed through the hospital in the crossroads of the Civil War were nurses who gave their time freely and willingly to save lives and aid the wounded.

Join Dr. Nesheiwat on an extraordinary journey of compassion and faith in Beyond the Stethoscope: Miracles in Medicine where gripping stories of miraculous recoveries, experiences in the ER, and global medical missions illuminate the transformative power of prayer and unwavering dedication to healing and service. Dr. Janette is among the frontline workers helping to get people through these dark moments—her greatest lifeline being her family and the power of God’s love.

Born in 1966 with a congenital heart defect known as the tetralogy of Fallot, Gabriel Brownstein entered the world just as doctors were learning to operate on conditions like his. He received a life-saving surgery at five years old, and since then has ridden wave after wave of medical innovation, a series of interventions that have kept his heart beating. The Open Heart Club is both a memoir of a life on the edge of medicine's reach and a history of the remarkable people who have made such a life possible.