Can we revive the Medicine group?

I've been following this group for a couple of years, and have been dismayed that it has been essentially moribund during that time. Without stepping on anyone's toes, I would like to do whatever I can to revive the group in 2012. I know of at least two other physicians and several nurses who are active on LT, although none of them are members of this group. BTW, as my LT name implies, I'm a pediatrician (pediatric hospitalist) employed by a major children's hospital system in Atlanta, Georgia (USA), and I'm most active in the 75 Books, Club Read, Reading Globally, Author Theme Reads, Booker Prize, Prizes, and Orange January/July groups. In addition, I created the Booker Prize group last summer.

As a start, I'll create a personal thread, which will include recent reviews of notable fiction and nonfiction books that I've read recently, and topics related to books about medicine.

If the members of this group have moved elsewhere, or if anyone has any ideas for increasing participation in this group, please let me know. I hope to see you here in 2012!

kidzdoc (Darryl)

Sounds great. If you'll have me (I'm a small animal veterinarian in San Francisco), I'd love to participate. I'm particularly interested in the history of medicine and epidemiology, narrative medicine and other aspects of medical humanities. My (animal) patients don't talk, but my (human) clients sure do, and the stories they tell -- and how they tell them -- fascinate me.

I'm not sure how best to get the ball rolling, but I'll try to contribute as much as I can.

Thanks, chocolatedog! I'm glad that you've decided to participate. I share your particular interests in the history of medicine, epidemiology, narrative medicine, and the medical humanities, so we should have a lot in common.

I think that veterinary medicine and pediatric medicine have at least two essential similarities: many of the pediatric patients and all of the animals can't tell you what's wrong with them, and the clinician must not only take care of the patient, but also, to an extent, the patient's "family", particularly in the face of a serious or incurable illness.

Yes, how do we get the ball rolling? I've mentioned my interest in reviving this group on the 75 Books group and Club Read, two of the more active groups on LT, and I see that mausergem (another physician), SqueakyChu (a nurse) and Mr.Durick (an erudite and prolific reader) have decided to join us (hi guys!). I'm certainly open to ideas, and we should all feel free to contribute in whatever way suits us best, IMO. I originally thought that individual threads might work best, but it may be better to create threads based on different subjects, such as the ones you mentioned, or for books or authors that are most notable.

I think we can try a little bit of everything to get the ball rolling -- throw things at the wall and see what sticks.

I definitely see the parallels between pediatrics and veterinary medicine. Your patient can't talk, so you have to advocate and mediate, in addition to (or as part of) practicing medicine.

Many people find that the most surprising thing about general practice in veterinary medicine is that 75% of what vets do is handle the humans. I think this is because people have such widely different beliefs about the role of pets in their lives, and the pet can signify so many different things -- a furry child, the last link to a spouse who has died, a pain-in-the-butt they have for the kids' sake, a disposable status symbol, a loved but definitely subordinate family member. So you have to suss out what the relationship between the pet and human is, how much they are willing to do for the pet (some won't give a pill, others compile binders full of their pet's health data, do blood glucose curves, give injections), what their expectations of veterinary care are (do they expect MRI's and other sophisticated diagnostics or "the shot that Old Doc gave that made everything better"), and how much they are willing to spend. And then you get to the medicine!

I love the people aspect of it, and I'm surprised that there is not more written about the art (rather than the science) of veterinary medicine. That's part of why I'm interested in the Medical Humanities.

Anyway, let's see where this group takes us. I've already got a lot of good books on my "To Read" pile thanks to your book review thread.

Well, I will try to contribute if I can. I am a biomedical scientist working on the basics of vision. I am not a clinician, though. I have read a couple of books described in Darryl's other post: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Both were excellent.

Another medically related book that I have read is My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor, although I found the writing somewhat repetitive. She has given a TED talk, which was quite interesting, although I am not sure it is scientifically sound: http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html.

A vision-related book, Twilight: Losing Sight, Gaining Insight by Henry Grunwald was very interesting. He was the editor-in-chief of Time Magazine at one time and is also the former ambassador to Austria (his native country).

One of the books on my TBR pile is now Obsessive Genius about Marie Curie, by Barbara Goldsmith.

Best wishes and Happy New Year,

k4k

Hello everyone! I'm a new doc (nontrad). I love animals as well so it seems we are developing that theme. My undergrad degree was in English literature. I'm interested in the psychosocial aspects of medicine, especially disability, cultural differences and doctor-patient communication (and doctor-doctor communication!)

Hello! I'm Marcia and I followed the link here from Darryl's thread over in the 75 Book Challenge group. I'm not a doctor or a nurse or a vet or a scientist, but I have spent considerable amount of time as a patient, which I think is where my interest stems from. It's always fascinating to me to see the doctors' side, because it is so different than the patient's yet equally compelling. I also took a Literature and Medicine course a few years ago that really sparked my interest in the topic. I'm especially interested in health professionals and patients' memoirs, other forms of narrative nonfiction related to medicine, and medical history.

I am looking forward to seeing what you all are reading and what you recommend and hopefully I can contribute to this group in spite of my lack of education!

Hi--I'm Janet. I'm a microbiology technician in a NIH research lab. I spent about 10 years in clinical labs as a technologist/chief technologist and have been in research about 25 years.

I'd really like to recommend the book Half the Sky by the Pultizer Prize winning team of Nicholas Kristof and Sherryl WuDunn. It's about the challenges women face in third world countries. Although it's by no means all medically-related (lots of social issues), there is a lot of medicine in it as women face issues such as AIDS, rape as a weapon of war, non-existant maternal health (devastating also to the fetus), children sold into sexual slavery, and fistulas. I feel it is one of those life changing reads that I only find every few years.

Another author I'd like to recommend is Temple Grandin who writes about living with autism. Her book Animals in Translation was one of my top reads in 2011. In it, she tells the story of how her autism helped her understand the way animals think and communicate and led to her crusade in reforming slaughterhouse practices. This is the only book I've read of hers, but people have enthusiastically recommended her other titles.

This is the only book I've read of hers, but people have enthusiastically recommended her other titles.

I would also recommend Temple Grandin's book The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism and Asperger's for her very practical advice as to how to deal with issues relating to people who have autism spectrum disorders. This is a book which hopefully will get readers to look beyond a person's "odd" behavior and more into who an individual really is. Such recognition is crucially important to help such people feel better about themselves and become competent in our often difficult world.

I'm not a physician, nurse, nor veterinarian; however, I have a son who is a 4th year psychiatric resident and a daughter who is an emergency specialist veterinarian so I claim a qualification in the second degree to be here :). My personal qualifications include a law degree plus graduate hours in forensic medicine (my most abiding interest) and an irresistible attraction to non-fiction writing and research. I am drawn to dissecting issues that engender emotional arguments on many sides such as the vaccine debate, autism, women's rights in abortion/healthcare/contraception, healthcare issues in general, and pediatric cancer (one daughter is a 20-year survivor).

I will read anything written by Sherwin Nuland (How We Die, The Mysteries Within), Atul Gawande (Complications, Better), and Jerome Groopman (Second Opinions, How Doctors Think) about the practice of medicine today. But Oliver Sacks (The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Seeing Voices) and Harold Klawans (Toscanini's Fumble, Newton's Madness) who write fiercely compelling stories of unusual medical mysteries, are my all-time favorites. If you haven't read any of their stories, you really must. Currently, there isn't much to compete with the haunting The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks but we can hope.

I would love to keep this group alive and kicking so we can share interesting books of narrative medicine, medical thrillers, and other medically-related writings.