Hi /lit/, I just finished my residency in pediatric surgery.

Brothers Karamazov would be great IMO. Otherwise, maybe Atul Gawande has some stuff,however ; I'm not sure how he is viewed by physicians.

>>9681877
There have been some very interesting non-fiction books written by doctors about their medical practice - including life and death issues - that I've seen reviewed in the past five years or so. I haven't read these books, but they're out there. Actually, the sense I guess is that there may be something of a mini-renaissance of this genre, or sub-genre of books.

You could do worse than read Chekov, who was a practicing physician. E.g., this:

>Chekhov's Doctors: A Collection of Chekhov's Medical Tales, edited by Jack Coulehan.

You can't really go wrong with Chekov. A truly great writer with the soul of a poet, and a doctor's non-sentimental clarity of vision.

Sherwin Nuland's How We Die, The Wisdom of the Body, and others.
John Donne's prose, Jeremy Taylor's as well.

The Plague by Camus, without a doubt.

The main character is a doctor who is dealing with death on an epidemic scale. Most of the book concerns his visitations and trials.

>>9681943
>"No," Rambert said bitterly, "You can’t understand. You’re using the language of reason, not of the heart; you live in a world of abstractions."

>Yes, the journalist was right in refusing to be balked of happiness. But was he right in reproaching him, Rieux, with living in a world of abstractions? Could the term "abstraction" really apply to these days he spent in his hospital while the plague was battening on the town, raising its death toll to five-hundred victims a week? Yes, an element of abstraction, of a divorce from reality, entered into such calamities. Still when abstraction sets to killing you, you’ve got to get busy with it.

>>9681896
One of the people who graduated before me actually gave me a copy of Better, which I assume is not one of his more transcendent works. I'll look back into him though.

>>9681905
Thanks, had never heard of Chekhov before.

>>9681926
I've read How We Die but nothing else, I appreciate you bringing Nuland back up. I'll look into the others.

>>9681943
At one point in my undergraduate career I tried to read The Myth Of Sisyphus but never gave any more Camus a chance. Thank you for the suggestion, sounds like something I would enjoy.

>>9681877
Intern: a doctor's initiation

Sandeep Jauhar

Fiction, but worthwhile: House of God, Samuel Shem.

Intern by Doctor X, first medical non-fiction i read and totally got me hooked on them. It's an old diary but it is just phenomenal.

I have been stuck in St. Louis for a little while and reread several Atul Gawande books. I'm considering pushing them to be mandatory pre-resident reading at our hospital.

Checklist Manifesto
Complications
Better
Being Moral

9/10 residents that read those books as carefully as they read their textbooks will be better doctors for it.

https://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/good-medical-non-fiction-book-to-read.1108461/