The best books by doctors who have been patients themselves

I found this an inspirational book, showing that besides causing much sadness and suffering, serious illness sometimes leads to positive transformation in people’s lives. While he was a medical student, Dinesh Palipana had a car crash that left him quadriplegic, apart from some limited hand function.

After years of rehabilitation, through tremendous hard work and determination, he became a doctor, lawyer, and disability advocate. This memoir is frank, practical, infused with humor, and the wisdom of Stoic philosophy. It put my own minor health concerns into perspective. Incidentally, he writes that an episode of major depression in his earlier life “paralyzed me more than the spinal cord injury ever has,” an interesting comparison between mental and physical illness. 

Dipping into this uplifting book before bed each night gave me gentle reminders of the deeper meaning that can be found even in the most mundane of incidents. The folksy title doesn’t do justice to the quality of these 70-odd short stories, which are based on the author’s experience in medical practice and personal life.

Rachel Remen developed Crohn’s disease in her teens, and despite continuing ill health requiring multiple surgeries and an ileostomy, she went on to have a long career as a doctor. I don’t know if she kept a reflective journal about daily events, but this book made me wish I had done so myself.

I found this a distressing but compelling read that made me reflect on my own life and mortality. Being a retired doctor myself, I know that healthcare professionals often delay seeking help for their own medical problems and can feel disconcerted and even humiliated when cast into the role of patient.

In this brutally honest account of his transition from famous surgeon to “just another old man with prostate cancer,” Henry Marsh combines a factual account of his illness and treatment with heartfelt ruminations about the prospect of dying. The text is interwoven with recollections of his career as a neurosurgeon in the UK and Ukraine, more fully described in his previous books “Do No Harm” and “Admissions.” 

I have read a lot about the “near-death experiences” (NDEs) reported by thousands of people who have recovered from life-threatening illnesses, so I was intrigued by this best-selling memoir.

Eben Alexander, a renowned academic neurosurgeon, contracted meningitis at age 54 and, after emerging from a coma in intensive care, recalled memories of journeying through heavenly realms. True glimpses of an afterlife or the hallucinations of a malfunctioning brain?

Although I am open to spiritual explanations, some aspects of his vividly described experience and of the family revelations that followed seemed to me hardly credible. But he writes with sincerity, and there is no doubt that his beliefs and relationships have been permanently transformed since his illness. 

I studied this 1930s text, a classic in the theory of holistic healing, as part of my training as a Bach flower remedy practitioner. Bach was working as a medical doctor when he was reportedly diagnosed with terminal abdominal cancer. He determined to make an original contribution to medicine before he died, and recovered.

Convinced that most illness is rooted in psychological and spiritual imbalance, Bach devoted his life to developing a natural method of treating the person, not the disease—a series of 38 flower essences designed to balance emotions and personality. I don’t accept all of Bach’s philosophy, but I do know that his remedies work.