Singular Intimacies is the story of becoming a doctor by immersion at New York's Bellevue Hospital, the oldest public hospital in the country-and perhaps the most legendary. It is both the classic inner-city hospital and a unique amalgam of history, insanity, beauty, and intellect. When Danielle Ofri enters the doors of this 250-year-old institution as a tentative medical student, she is immediately plunged into the teeming world of urban medicine: mysterious illnesses, patients speaking any one of a dozen languages, overworked interns devising audacious strategies to cope with the feverish intensity of a big-city hospital. Yet the emphasis of Singular Intimacies is not so much on the arduous hours in medical training (which certainly exist here) but on the evolution of an instinct for healing.^

In 1997, Stanley B. Prusiner received a Nobel Prize, the world's most prestigious award for achievement in physiology or medicine. That he was the sole recipient of the award for the year was entirely appropriate. His struggle to identify the agent responsible for ravaging the brains of animals suffering from scrapie and mad cow disease, and of humans with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, had been waged largely alone and in some cases in the face of strenuous disagreement. In this book, Prusiner tells the remarkable story of his discovery of prions - infectious proteins that replicate and cause disease but surprisingly contain no genetic material - and reveals how superb and meticulous science is actually practiced with talented teams of researchers who persevere. He recounts the frustrations and rewards of years of research and offers fascinating portraits of his peers as they raced to discover the causes of fatal brain diseases. Prusiner's hypothesis, once considered heresy, now stands as accepted science and the basis for developing diagnoses and eventual cures. He closes with a meditation on the legacy of his discovery: What will it take to cure Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Lou Gehrig's and other devastating diseases of the brain?

From the bestselling author of the The House of God comes an ambitious novel about the complicated relationships between mothers and sons, doctors and patients, the past and the present, and love and death... Settled into a relationship with an Italian yoga instructor and working in Europe, Dr. Orville Rose's peace is shaken by his mother's death. On his return to Columbia, a Hudson River town of quirky people and “plagued by breakage,” he learns that his mother has willed him a large sum of money, her 1981 Chrysler, and her Victorian house in the center of town. There's one odd catch: he must live in her house for one year and thirteen days. As he struggles with his decision—to stay and meet the terms of the will or return to his life in Italy—Orville reconnects with family, reunites with former friends, and comes to terms with old rivals and bitter memories. In the process he’ll discover his own history, as well as his mother’s, and finally learn what it really means to be a healer, and to be healed.

" Here, in his own words, is the story of one of the twentieth century's most creative medical innovators, Dr. Henry Heimlich. The thoracic surgeon is best known for having developed the Heimlich Maneuver, the world's easiest-to-learn and most universally known method to save people from choking to death on food or foreign objects. But many don't know about Dr. Heimlich's other life-saving inventions. He is the inventor of the Heimlich Chest Drain Valve, which saved thousands of lives during the Vietnam War, and the Heimlich MicroTrach, which provides a remarkably efficient way for people to take oxygen. In the present decade, Dr. Heimlich has turned his attention to two devastating illnesses for which medicine has not yet found a cure--cancer and HIV. He describes his research and its promise, as well as the controversy and resistance his new ideas have generated from the medical establishment. Interweaving the author's personal life with riveting stories of his numerous medical breakthroughs, this rich memoir provides insights into the workings of a creative mind and the machinations of the American medical system."

Presents a very detailed account, including the English and European context, of the Lopez Affair, involving Dr. Roderigo Lopez, who gained wealth via international trade and became physician to Queen Elizabeth I. At the same time, he was a spy, with multiple masters, in England and abroad. His downfall and execution on the false charge of attempted regicide stemmed from political rivalry in England. His high status was related to the advantages, such as widespread contacts, that stemmed from his Converso background. Contemporary stereotyped attitudes toward Jews were reflected in Marlowe's "Jew of Malta" and Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice."

John Marks is something of a national treasure. Warm, funny, passionate, opinionated and occasionally contrary, he is a man whose life for more than 40 years marched in beat with that of the National Health Service. There is scarcely a medical issue or controversy in which John Marks was not involved. Abortion law reform, the doctors' 1970s revolt against the General Medical Council, the foundation of the Royal College of General Practitioners, countless NHS reorganizations, and the bloody battle over NHS pay beds and the pay of junior doctors are just a sample.Then there was the fierce, principled battle over how the medical profession and the public should respond to the terror of a new disease - AIDS. And the great war that was fought over the Conservatives introduction of market forces into the NHS in the late 1980s and early 1990s - an approach to running the NHS that lives on, reincarnated, under the current Labor government.In all of these John Marks played more than a walk-on part. In many he was a principal actor. For anyone wanting fully to understand the BMA's role in all this, this book is thus required reading. But it is much more than just a dry history of times past. It is laced with anecdote, from the horrifying to the hilarious, and on to high politics. John Marks' account of his life and times provides the tale of a warm, human, liberal and occasionally buccaneering man whose passion for life and causes leaves even those who do not always agree with him eager to count him among their friends.

A gripping exploration of the legal and ethical dilemmas in neonatal intensive care—a truly original work. Chosen as an Outstanding Academic Titles in 2003 by Choice Magazine In this new, startlingly original book, John D. Lantos weaves a compelling story that captures the dilemmas of modern medical practice. The Lazarus Case: Life-and-Death Issues in Neonatal Intensive Care begins with a fictional malpractice case—an amalgam of typical cases in which Lantos appeared as an expert witness—and uses it as the framework for addressing the ethical issues surrounding neonatal intensive care. Lantos draws on his experience in neonatal medicine, pediatrics, and medical ethics to explore multiple ethical dilemmas through one poignant representative situation. In Lantos's model case, a doctor decides to stop resuscitation of a premature infant, a tiny "preemie" who seems past reasonable care. The baby survives with severe neurological defects and the parents sue the doctor, alleging that stopping treatment was negligent. From this case, Lantos considers our moral obligations to critically ill babies, the meaning of negligence, and the sorts of social structures that shape the moral consciences of doctors. Each chapter begins with Lantos deposing in the conference room of the plaintiffs' lawyers. The questions put to Lantos throughout the deposition spark an engrossing retelling of his personal experiences with premature babies, as well as his thoughtful discussions of ethics, morality, history, and medical statistics. Sprinkled throughout the book are references to fictional works by Camus, Dostoevsky, Shakespeare, Twain, and others. Lantos uses these literary examples to further illustrate the ambiguities, misunderstandings, responsibilities, and evasions that plague our decisions regarding life and death, medical care and medical education, and ultimately the cost and value of preserving the lives of the most vulnerable among us.