Is it possible to take a break from studying for the NAC-OSCE and still feel like you're studying while you're actually relaxing? Yes, absolutely. How? Learn from the experience of others by reading a medical or patient memoir. Here are some of my favourite titles:
God's Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine (2012) and Slow Medicine: The Way to Healing (2017) by American Dr. Victoria Sweet, an Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
Life on the Ground Floor: Letters From the Edge of Emergency Medicine (2017) by Dr. James Maskalyk, Canadian emergency room physician and associate professor at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Medicine.
The Beauty of Dusk: On Vision Lost and Found (2022) by New York Times op-ed writer and journalist, Frank Bruni, who after a stroke was blinded in one eye.
This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor (2017) and Twas The Night Shift Before Christmas (2019) by former doctor, now actor, comedian, writer, Adam Kay. His first book was recently adapted for TV on BBC ONE. Series one is available for viewing now.
Good Morning, Monster: A Therapist Shares Five Heroic Stories of Emotional Recovery (2019) by American-Canadian clinical psychologist, Catherine Gildiner.
The Sleeping Beauties: And Other Stories of Mystery Illness (2021) by Irish neurologist, Suzanne O'Sullivan.
The Journal of a Disappointed Man (1919) by W.N.P Barbellion, an English naturalist and diarist who lived with multiple sclerosis.
When Breath Becomes Air (2016) by Dr. Paul Kalanithi, who was an American neurosurgeon.
All That Remains: A Life in Death (2018) and Written in Bone: Hidden Stories in What We Leave Behind (2020) by Scottish forensic anthropologist and anatomist, Sue Black.
Call the Nurse: True Stories of a Country Nurse on a Scottish Isle (2013) by English nurse and world traveller, Mary J. MacLeod.
Dear Life: A Doctor's Story of Love and Loss (2020) by Dr. Rachel Clarke, NHS palliative care doctor who lives in Oxfordshire.
All the Young Men: A Memoir of Love, AIDS, and Chosen Family in the American South (2020) by American LGBTQ community advocate , Ruth Coker Burks (with Kevin Carr O'Leary).
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