We’re honoring our brave healthcare workers by sharing inspirational and informative nonfiction reads about the working lives of nurses and doctors.


Nonfiction:

The Language of Kindness: A Nurse’s Story by Christie Watson

A moving, lyrical, beautifully-written portrait of a nurse and the lives she has touched.

Christie Watson spent twenty years as a nurse, and in this intimate, poignant, and remarkably powerful book, she opens the doors of the hospital and shares its secrets. She takes us by her side down hospital corridors to visit the wards and meet her unforgettable patients.

In the neonatal unit, premature babies fight for their lives, hovering at the very edge of survival, like tiny Emmanuel, wrapped up in a sandwich bag. On the cancer wards, the nurses administer chemotherapy and, long after the medicine stops working, something more important–which Watson learns to recognize when her own father is dying of cancer. In the pediatric intensive care unit, the nurses wash the hair of a little girl to remove the smell of smoke from the house fire. The emergency room is overcrowded as ever, with waves of alcohol and drug addicted patients as well as patients like Betty, a widow suffering chest pain, frail and alone. And the stories of the geriatric ward–Gladys and older patients like her–show the plight of the most vulnerable members of our society.

“Through the smallest of actions, nurses provide vital care and kindness.”

Available in Hardcover, Trade Paperback, eBook, Audio, and Large Print Editions.

Click to Read an Excerpt.

Listen to a Clip from the Audiobook.


Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder

This compelling and inspiring book shows how one person can work wonders. In Mountains Beyond Mountains, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder tells the true story of a gifted man who loves the world and has set out to do all he can to cure it.

In medical school, Paul Farmer found his life’s calling: to cure infectious diseases and to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who need them most. Kidder’s magnificent account takes us from Harvard to Haiti, Peru, Cuba, and Russia as Farmer changes minds and practices through his dedication to the philosophy that “the only real nation is humanity.” At the heart of this book is the example of a life based on hope and on an understanding of the truth of the Haitian proverb “Beyond mountains there are mountains”–as you solve one problem, another problem presents itself, and so you go on and try to solve that one too.

Click to Read an Excerpt.

Click for a Discussion Guide.

Click for a Teacher’s Guide.

Listen to a Clip from the Audiobook.


Chasing My Cure: A Doctor’s Race to Turn Hope into Action by David Fajgenbaum

The powerful memoir of a young doctor and former college athlete diagnosed with a rare disease who spearheaded the search for a cure—and became a champion for a new approach to medical research.

David Fajgenbaum, a former Georgetown quarterback, was nicknamed the Beast in medical school, where he was also known for his unmatched mental stamina. But things changed dramatically when he began suffering from inexplicable fatigue. In a matter of weeks, his organs were failing and he was read his last rites. Doctors were baffled by his condition, which they had yet to even diagnose. Floating in and out of consciousness, Fajgenbaum prayed for a second chance, the equivalent of a dramatic play to second the game into overtime.

Miraculously, Fajgenbaum survived—only to endure repeated near-death relapses from what would eventually be identified as a form of Castleman disease, an extremely deadly and rare condition that acts like a cross between cancer and an autoimmune disorder. When he relapsed while on the only drug in development and realized that the medical community was unlikely to make progress in time to save his life, Fajgenbaum turned his desperate hope for a cure into concrete action: Between hospitalizations he studied his own charts and tested his own blood samples, looking for clues that could unlock a new treatment. With the help of family, friends, and mentors, he also reached out to other Castleman disease patients and physicians, and eventually came up with an ambitious plan to crowdsource the most promising research questions and recruit world-class researchers to tackle them. Instead of waiting for the scientific stars to align, he would attempt to align them himself.

Available in Hardcover, eBook, and Audio Editions.

Click to Read an Excerpt.

Listen to a Clip from the Audiobook.


Doctor Dogs: How Our Best Friends Are Becoming Our Best Medicine by Maria Goodavage

New York Times bestselling author Maria Goodavage takes us on a thrilling, delightful, globe-trotting journey to discover the heartwarming and fascinating new world of doctor dogs.

In this groundbreaking book, Goodavage brings us behind the scenes of cutting-edge science at top research centers, and into the lives of people whose well-being depends on their devoted, highly skilled personal MDs (medical dogs). With her signature wit and passion, Goodavage explores how doctor dogs are becoming our happy allies in the fight against dozens of physical and mental conditions.

We meet dogs who detect cancer and Parkinson’s disease, and dogs who alert people to seizures and diabetic lows or highs and other life-threatening physical ailments. Goodavage reveals the revolutionary ways dogs are helping those with autism, anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, and post-traumatic stress disorder. And she introduces us to intrepid canines who are protecting us from antibiotic-resistant bugs, and to dogs who may one day help keep us safe from epidemic catastrophe. Their paycheck for their lifesaving work? Heartfelt praise and a tasty treat or favorite toy.

Available in Hardcover, eBook, and Audio Editions.

Click to Read an Excerpt.

Listen to a Clip from the Audiobook.


The Beauty in Breaking: A Memoir by Michele Harper

An emergency room physician explores how a life of service to others taught her how to heal herself.

Michele Harper is a female, African American emergency room physician in a profession that is overwhelmingly male and white. Brought up in Washington, D.C., in a complicated family, she went to Harvard, where she met her husband. They stayed together through medical school until two months before she was scheduled to join the staff of a hospital in central Philadelphia, when he told her he couldn’t move with her. Her marriage at an end, Harper began her new life in a new city, in a new job, as a newly single woman.

The Beauty in Breaking is the poignant true story of Harper’s journey toward self-healing. Each of the patients Harper writes about taught her something important about recuperation and recovery. How to let go of fear even when the future is murky. How to tell the truth when it’s simpler to overlook it. How to understand that compassion isn’t the same as justice. As she shines a light on the systemic disenfranchisement of the patients she treats as they struggle to maintain their health and dignity, Harper comes to understand the importance of allowing ourselves to make peace with the past as we draw support from the present.

Coming in July!

Available in Hardcover, eBook, and Audio Editions.

Click to Read an Excerpt.


I’ve Seen the End of You: A Neurosurgeon’s Look at Faith, Doubt, and the Things We Think We Know by W. Lee Warren, M.D.

This gripping inspirational memoir grapples with the tension between faith and science—and between death and hope—as a seasoned neurosurgeon faces insurmountable odds and grief both in the office and at home.

Dr. W. Lee Warren, a practicing brain surgeon, assumed he knew most outcomes for people with glioblastoma, head injuries, and other health-care problems. Yet even as he tried to give patients hope, his own heart would sink as he realized, I’ve seen the end of you.

But it became far more personal when the acclaimed doctor experienced an unimaginable family tragedy. That’s when he reached the end of himself.

I’ve Seen the End of You is the rare book that offers tender empathy and tangible hope for those who are suffering. No matter what you’re facing, this doesn’t have to be the end. Even when nothing seems to makes sense, God can transform your circumstances and your life. And he can offer a new beginning.

Available in Hardcover, eBook, and Audio Editions.

Click to Read an Excerpt.

Click for a Discussion Guide.

Listen to a Clip from the Audiobook.


A Surgeon in the Village: An American Doctor Teaches Brain Surgery in Africa by Tony Bartelme

An inspiring story of doctors who changed the health care of an African nation.

Dr. Dilan Ellegala arrives in Tanzania, shocked to find the entire country has just three brain surgeons for its population of forty-two million. Haydom Lutheran Hospital lacks even the most basic surgical tools. Here, people with head injuries or brain tumors heal on their own or die. When confronted with a villager suffering from a severe head trauma, Dilan buys a tree saw from a farmer, sterilizes it, and then uses it to save the man’s life.

Yet Dilan realizes that there are far too many neurosurgery patients for one person to save, and of course he will soon be leaving Tanzania. He needs to teach someone his skills. He identifies a potential student in Emmanuel Mayegga, a stubborn assistant medical officer who grew up in a mud hut. Though Mayegga has no medical degree, Dilan sees that Mayegga has the dexterity, intelligence, and determination to do brain surgery. Over six months, he teaches Mayegga how to remove tumors and treat hydrocephalus. And then, perhaps more important, Dilan teaches Mayegga how to pass on his newfound skills. Mayegga teaches a second Tanzanian, who teaches a third. It’s a case of teach-a-man-to-fish meets brain surgery.

As he guides these Tanzanians to do things they never thought possible, Dilan challenges the Western medical establishment to do more than send vacationing doctors on short-term medical missions. He discovers solutions that could transform health care for two billion people across the world.

Available in Hardcover, Trade Paperback, and eBook Editions.


 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *