Youth

Camps & Games  |  Want to be a Doctor?  |  Explore Health Care   |  Read about Scientists

Read about famous doctors and scientists:

Books:

There are many books about being a doctor or being a patient. Many of them have been written by doctors. Examples appear below. There are also doctors who have written novels and poems that are not about medicine.

For readers aged 10-12:

• Jeri Ferris: Native American Doctor: The True Story of Susan LaFlesche Picotte
  This book is about one of the first Native Americans to earn a medical degree. You may also enjoy reading more about the author: Susan LaFlesche

For readers aged 16 and up:

• Tracy Kidder: Mountains Beyond Mountains
  A book about Paul Farmer, a doctor dedicated to care of the underserved.

• Max Lerner: Wrestling with the Angel
  Personal experiences about overcoming illness- from the patient’s perspective

• Sinclair Lewis: Arrowsmith
  A novel taking place in the early 20th century in which a young doctor struggles with many of the issues that are still present today in the field of medicine.
  In 1926, Arrowsmith won the Pulitzer Prize
  

• Niriksha Malladi: So You Want to be a Doctor?
  A “how-to” book about applying to medical school and about what life is like as a medical student and resident. Chapter 3 is oriented especially toward late high school and early college students.

• Oliver Sachs:
  
  • Awakenings (made into a movie)
  • The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
  • Seeing Voices: A Journey into the World of the Deaf
  • The Island of the Colorblind
  • Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain

  These are each collections of Dr. Sach’s observations from a long career as a neurologist. You may also enjoy reading more about the author: Oliver Sachs or visit Oliver Sacks website

• Richard Selzer:
  
  • Down From Troy An autobiography about Dr. Selzer's path into careers both in surgery and in writing.
  • Rituals of Surgery
  • Letters to a Young Doctor
  • Taking the World in for Repairs
  • Imagine a Woman: and Other Tales
  • The Doctor Stories

  These are each collections of short stories written by Dr. Selzer with medical themes. The Doctor Stories is a collection of many of the same stories in the previous books with a few new ones. You may also enjoy reading more about the author: Richard Selzer

• Samuel Shem: The Spirit of the Place
  A novel about a doctor who moves back to his home town and learns about small town medical practice and treating the working poor.
  

• Lewis Thomas:
  
  • The Lives of a Cell: Notes of a Biology Watcher
  • The Medusa and the Snail: More Notes of a Biology Watcher
  • The Youngest Science: Notes of a Medicine-Watcher

  These are collections of observations from a long career as a scientist and academic physician. You may also enjoy reading more about this author: Lewis Thomas

• Audrey Young: What Patients Taught Me. A Medical Student’s Journey
  Written by a UW medical student as she explores medical care in rural areas of the Pacific Northwest

Biographies of famous scientists and health professionals:

• Albert Schweitzer - the original medical humanitarian who built hospitals and took care of those without access to medical care
• Clara Barton - founder of the American Red Cross
• Florence Nightingale - considered the founder of modern nursing
• Marie Curie - a scientist who worked with radioactive materials and was instrumental in increasing the use of x-ray
• Louis Pasteur - recognized that disease was caused by “germs” and developed a process to kill many of them- now known as pasteurization.
• Walter Reed - discovered that a certain kind of mosquito could cause infections in people.

^ TOP

---

Quick Links