Holiday Special: Matt Morgan discusses medical memoires, popular science and the importance of medical writing.

This podcast was a little different and, hence, so are the show notes. What follows is the books mentioned during the recording. The list is neither comprehensive nor to suggest we’re especially literate: we’re not.

Instead, we’re merely encouraging people to explore books about the wider world of medicine and to bolster your courage when you come to write your own! Feel free to share your favorites, especially those that we missed, via our Twitter or Instagram accounts.

Matt Morgan

Critical 2019 (history of ICU, personal reflection)

One Medicine, 2023 (popular science, comparative physiology)

James Maskalyk

Life on the Ground Floor, 2017 (emergency medicine in both developed and developing world, personal reflection)

Kevin Fong

Extreme Medicine, 2014 (popular science, physiology)

Rachel Clarke

Your Life in My Hands, 2017 (life as a junior doctor, personal reflection)

David Nott

War Doctor, 2019 (surgery in developing world and war zones), personal reflection)

Aoife Abbey

Seven Signs of Life, 2019 (ICU physician, personal reflections)

Henry Marsh

Do no harm, 2014 (neurosurgeon, personal reflections

Admissions, 2017

Adam Kay

This is Going to Hurt 2017 (obstetrics, personal reflections, diary)

Undoctored (2022)

Kathryn Mannix

With the End in Mind 2017 (end of life, palliative care, insights)

Michael Bliss

The Discovery of Insulin 1982 (medical history)

William Osler: a life in medicine, 1999

Harvey Cushing, 2005

Rose George

The Big Necessity, 2008 (the story of human waste)

Nine Pints, 2019 (blood and transfusion)

Mary Roach

Stiff: the curious life of human cadavers, 2021 (self explanatory)

Caitlan Doughty

Smoke gets in your eyes, 2015 (working in the funeral and cremation business)

Sam Keens

The tale of the dueling neurosurgeons, 2014 (popular science, neuroanatomy)

The Icepick Surgeon, 2021 (the awful things done in the name of medical science)

Roy Porter

Medicine, a history of healing, 1997 (medical history)

The greatest benefit to mankind, 1999

And one we didn’t mention but should have

Wendy Moore

The Knife Man, 2005 (biography of John Hunter and the history of surgery and Victorian medicine)