Despite battling depression in his mid-teens, Rohit Kumar fulfilled his beloved parents’ dream of becoming a doctor in 1990. He was one of Canada’s first hospitalists before setting up a highly successful private practice, and acquired specialized expertise in treating patients with chronic pain and those needing palliative care. Dr. Kumar’s star began rising in both Canada and the United States. But, his increasingly erratic behaviour and mood swings began alienating his colleagues, wives an...

Benjamin Daniels is angry. He is frustrated, confused, baffled and, quite frequently, very funny. He is also a GP. These are his confessions.A woman troubled by pornographic dreams about Tom Jones. An 80-year-old man who can't remember why he's come to see the doctor. A woman with a common cold demanding (but not receiving) antibiotics. A man with a sore knee. A young woman who has been trying to conceive for a while but now finds herself pregnant and isn't sure she wants to go thr...

**Victoria Sweet's new book, SLOW MEDICINE, is on sale now!For readers of Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air, a medical “page-turner” that traces one doctor’s “remarkable journey to the essence of medicine” (The San Francisco Chronicle).**San Francisco’s Laguna Honda Hospital is the last almshouse in the country, a descendant of the Hôtel-Dieu (God’s hotel) that cared for the sick in the Middle Ages. Ballet dancers and rock musicians, professors and ...

The acclaimed portrait of institutionalized patients whose abandoned possessions recall their forgotten lives“A deeply moving testament to the human side of mental illness.” —Oliver SacksWhen Willard State Hospital closed its doors in 1995, after operating as one of New York State’s largest mental institutions for over 120 years, a forgotten attic filled with suitcases belonging to former patients was discovered. Using the possessi...

Her weakest moment spawned a crusade for change. Julie Devaney takes us on a journey through the health care system as she is diagnosed and treated for ulcerative colitis. In and out of emergency rooms in Vancouver and Toronto, she’s poked, prodded, and abandoned to a closet at one point, bearing the helplessness and indignities of a system that seems hell-bent on victimizing the sick. Raw, harrowing, and darkly funny, Julie Devaney argues convincingly for fixes to the system and better tr...

Where do you go for help when no one believes you're really sick? The doctors can’t explain your symptoms, but you know there’s something wrong because you can sense it in your body. Living with the specter of an unresolved health issue isn't just painful, it's isolating. The preoccupation and stress it causes can disrupt your career or interfere with personal relationships. If you continually experience symptoms of illness, or worry a lot about disease, you may be suffering from health an...

In The Surprising Lives of Small-Town Doctors, physicians put down their stethoscopes and pick up their pens to share some of the most frightening and pivotal moments of their careers. From making igloo house calls to bandaging animal bites to performing surgeries they may have only read about in textbooks, these young doctors speak of the many rewards of practising medicine in small communities. They also detail the fears, failures, and challenges of providing health care in the ...

An unforgettable love story and the incredible chronicle of a musical genius and a mathematical prodigy who share a diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome.When Jerry and Mary Newport met, the connection was instant. A musical genius and a mathematical wonder, the two shared astronomic IQs, but they also shared something else—they both were diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, a form of autism that affects millions of Americans and makes social contact painfully unbearable...

With his “deeply informed and compassionate book…Dr. Epstein tells us that it is a ‘moral imperative’ [for doctors] to do right by their patients” (New York Journal of Books).The first book for the general public about the importance of mindfulness in medical practice, Attending is a groundbreaking, intimate exploration of how doctors approach their work with patients. From his early days as a Harvard Medical School student, Epstein saw what made ...

The inspiring story of how a leading innovator in patient safety found a simple way to save countless lives.First, do no harm-doctors, nurses and clinicians swear by this code of conduct. Yet in hospitals and doctors' offices across the country, errors are made every single day - avoidable, simple mistakes that often cost lives. Inspired by two medical mistakes that not only ended in unnecessary deaths but hit close to home, Dr. Peter Pronovost made it his personal...

You Don't Look Sick chronicles one personís true-life story of illness and her physicians compassionate commentary as they journey through the four stages of chronic illness: Getting Sick, Being Sick, Grief and Acceptance and Living Well. The authors address such practical aspects as hiring a doctor, managing chronic pain, coping with grief and loss of function, winning battles with health and disability insurers, countering the social bias against the chronically ill, and recogni...

"Insightful and filled with verve...electrifying."—Wall Street JournalHailed as "an astute book of enormous importance" (Sherwin Nuland), The Surgeons follows the team at one of the world's premier cardiac surgery and transplant centers. Given unprecedented access, Charles R. Morris recounts in thrilling detail a late-night against-the-clock "harvest run" to secure a precious transplantable organ, the heartbreaking story of a child's failed transplant, and more. A...