Books about doctors occupy a special place in the literature of each country. After all, these are representatives of one of the most complex and humane professions, therefore their writers are always interested in their inner world. In this article we will talk about the most famous works that tell about doctors.
"Doctor Zhivago"
When you start talking about books about doctors, one of the first ones recalls Boris Pasternakâs novel âDoctor Zhivago,â for which the author received the Nobel Prize in literature.
This work became the main thing in the life of a prose writer; Pasternak worked on it from 1945 to 1955. A special place in it is occupied by the verses of the protagonist Yuri Zhivago.
The writer in his book about the doctor manages to draw a large-scale canvas of the life of the domestic intelligentsia against the backdrop of the dramatic events that take place in the country - from the beginning of the 20th century until the Great Patriotic War. Through the biography of the protagonist Dr. Zhivago, the author tries to uncover the secret of life and death, solve the problems of Russian history, revolution and intelligentsia, religion.
The book was extremely negatively received in the Soviet Union when Pasternak tried to publish it. The novel was banned, and after the author received the Nobel Prize, he was subjected to real persecution in his homeland. Readers in reviews were delighted with the novel, but it was impossible to read it freely at home, Soviet criticism was hostile to it.
The reader gets acquainted with the book about the military doctor and the poet Zhivago, together with him he experiences all the hardships of the revolution, love affliction.
"Notes of a young doctor"
We can say with confidence that the collection of stories by Mikhail Bulgakov inspired many future doctors to choose this particular profession. This is a famous art book about a doctor, in which there are a lot of autobiographical materials.
Bulgakov first published this series of stories in 1925-1926 in two magazines - Red Panorama and The Medical Worker. In total, the collection includes seven works, each of which is unique in its own way. These are the stories âTowel with a Roosterâ, âBaptism by Turnâ, âSteel Throatâ, âMissing Eyeâ, âEgyptian Darknessâ, âBlizzardâ, âStar Rashâ. All of them are combined in the collection "Notes of a young doctor." The book was repeatedly filmed, received positive reviews from readers and critics.
The main character is a young doctor who comes to the place of an old doctor in the Russian province. The places that Bulgakov describes are in the territory of the modern Smolensk region. In the doctorâs note book they are presented as frankly and sincerely as possible. He has to deal with complex clinical cases, as well as with the reticence of poorly educated people.
In the stories, the main character has to deal with the need to amputate the leg of a young village girl, have a difficult birth, and make a tracheotomy for a little girl who suffers from diphtheria. In a terrible blizzard, he goes to the neighboring village to help his colleague, who does not know what to do with the woman who broke her head when falling from the horse, then treats the miller for malaria, is faced with a huge tumor that closes the childâs eye, and is struggling with syphilis.
"Final diagnosis"
Among American books about doctors, itâs worth noting Arthur Haleyâs best-selling novel, The Final Diagnosis, written in 1959. Like most of the works of this author, the novel is production, it details the profession of a physician.
In this book about doctors, events unfold in Pennsylvania in the middle of the 20th century. The protagonist is 66-year-old pathologist Joe Pearson, his wife passed away ten years ago. After that, he abandoned himself, stopped monitoring his appearance, and soon looked more like a tramp than a head of a hospital. At the same time, he remained an experienced and valuable specialist.
In the novel, he is confronted by the surgeon Kent OÂŽDonnell, who is 20 years younger than Pearson, has a athletic and courageous figure, is not averse to take the place of an elderly doctor. The hospital, in which the heroes of the novel work, is in decline, Kent just wants to restore her former greatness. But the old doctors and, first of all, Pearson are opposed to innovations. The situation is aggravated by the fact that the pathologist is close friends with financial tycoon Swain, a member of the board of trustees, on whom the amount of money the hospital will receive depends on a lot.
"Shutter Island"
Fiction books about doctors and medicine often turn out to be fascinating and action-packed thrillers. This happened with Dennis Lehaneâs novel, âIsland of the Damned,â which was first published in 2003. Most well know his film adaptation, which was filmed by Martin Scorsese in 2010, and the main role was played by Leonardo di Caprio.
DiCaprio plays a patient in a psychiatric hospital. He meets with his healthcare provider Lester Sheen, played by Mark Ruffalo. Teddy suffers from constant headaches, his own dreams and memories are crushing him, he is also trying to solve the mystery of Rachel Solando's disappearance from the locked chamber. Gloomy associations and thoughts only get worse when he finds himself in a gloomy hospital.
The novel is not as simple as it might seem at first glance. This is a classic piece with an unexpected ending that will amaze even the sophisticated reader.
"Cancer body"
There is a book about doctors in the bibliography of another Russian writer, Nobel Prize laureate Alexander Solzhenitsyn. This is the Cancer Corps novel, written between 1963 and 1966. In it, the author indulges in memories of treatment in the oncology department of a hospital in Tashkent, where he ended up in 1954.
This is an art book about doctors for the first time to be published in Twardowskiâs journal New World, but Soviet censorship never allowed the novel to be published. In 1967, the work was released in the West, and at home - only in 1990.
At the center of the story is the so-called "cancerous" building of the hospital at the Tashkent Medical Institute. Solzhenitsyn frankly talks about clashes in ideological issues that regularly arise between the heroes of the work, how people who are almost doomed to death struggle with illness and death inevitable for many, describes in detail the inner world of the inhabitants of hospital wards.
The prototypes for the characters of the novel were many real people. For example, the head of the radiation department Lidia Dunaeva, which many patients called "mother."
"Ambulance Tales"
Often, fiction books about doctors and medicine are humorous in nature. So, the famous Russian writer Mikhail Weller became famous for his short story collection "Ambulance Tales", which was written in 1997.
In it, the author almost immediately claims that only representatives of two professions can know the inside of any city. These are doctors and police officers. Ambulance employees who daily save the lives of Leningrad residents, and this fun, satirical, a little hooligan book is dedicated to.
Weller describes cases from medical practice, half real, half fictional. The titles of the stories in this collection speak for themselves - "Drunken Trauma", "Suicide", "Head", "Gunshot", "Fall from a Height", "Poisoning", "Shock".
In reviews of this book about doctors, readers and critics note that stories are read easily, literally in one go. They have a peculiar humor, which sometimes becomes frankly black. But in another way, talking about ambulance everyday life is probably impossible. The writer succeeds as briefly as possible, succinctly, and with a special âspearheadâ inherent only to him.
Surgeon Krelin
Often the authors of books about doctors are the doctors themselves, who from the inside can describe everything that is happening with representatives of their profession. True, few manage to combine literature and medicine for a long time. One of them is a professional surgeon and writer Julius Krelin. Well-known doctor, candidate of medical sciences.
In his works, Krelin always described the everyday life and difficulties of ordinary Moscow hospitals, people who perform a feat daily, saving someoneâs life. His bibliography is very extensive. This is a collection of 1967 short stories âSeven days a week: Notes of a surgeonâ, a collection of short stories and short stories of 1970 âAn old man brings shellsâ, a 1976 novel âFrom this worldâ, a 1977 book âTransfusion of forces: From the life of surgeonsâ, a story 1991 year "Chronicle of the Moscow hospital."
Perhaps the most famous was his story "The Surgeon", which in 1976 was adapted by Vadim Zobin. For the film, entitled "The Days of the Surgeon Mishkin," Krelin himself wrote the script, carefully and scrupulously reworking his story.
The main role in this picture was played by Oleg Efremov. This is a straightforward and frank story about a talented surgeon Mishkin, who runs a hospital in a small provincial town. Everyone around him calls him a surgeon from God, but he does not seek fame, does not try to move up the career ladder. He is simply devoted to his profession, and every day saves people. Only from this he receives joy and satisfaction, but often they are replaced by pain and grief, when even a talented surgeon does not help save a human life.
"Case of Kukotsky"
A well-known modern Russian writer Lyudmila Ulitskaya also has a book about doctors and medicine. In 2001, she wrote the novel "The Case of Kukotsky," which in the same year received the Russian Booker Award.
The book describes the fate of a gynecologist, a hereditary physician, whose name is Pavel Kukotsky. He naturally had the talent of a diagnostician, thanks to which he almost immediately âsawâ the internal organs of patients affected by diseases.
In 1942, in a small provincial Siberian city, he saved his future wife, whose name is Elena Georgievna, from death. To save her life, he has to remove her uterus. When Elena recovers, the doctor takes her to her with her 2-year-old daughter Tanya.
So begins this fascinating novel, which describes in detail and reliably the fate of the family of Professor Kukotsky until the mid-60s. The novel itself consists of four parts, each of which describes the fate of one of the generations of this family.
The novel was highly appreciated not only by domestic, but also foreign critics. In addition to the Russian Booker, the novel received the Penne Prize, which is awarded in Italy.
"What are the doctors talking about?"
A doctor is such a unique and special profession that sometimes an additional translator is required for understanding between a specialist and a patient. Andrei Zvonkov decided to take on such a role in his work "What are the doctors talking about?" The book has a subtitle "How to understand the doctor's recommendations and test results."
The author notes that very often, being at the doctorâs appointment, the patient is confused, he even seems to be indifferent to him. But many people want not only to receive recommendations from doctors, but also to delve into the details of treatment, examinations, understand how his analyzes deviate from the norm, how critical this is. Everyone wants to be sure that he is being treated correctly, to have an idea of ââwhat drugs he is prescribed and for what purpose, instead of blindly following the recommendations of the treating doctor.
Zvonkovâs book is not fiction. This is an attempt to write an accessible manual for decoding analyzes, it is a kind of personal guidebook that should help you find answers to all your questions, navigate in critical situations, learn to understand the analysis yourself, know how to properly communicate with a doctor, and conduct dialogue on an equal footing.
At the same time, Zvonkov notes that the book should not be taken as a complete replacement for a doctorâs consultation, in all cases it is better to consult a doctor directly.
"An honest conversation with a Russian gynecologist"
We finish the review of the literature on doctors not with fiction, but with books that help patients communicate with doctors and better understand the diagnoses and recommendations that they are prescribed.
The book of gynecologist Dmitry Lubnin is a kind of guide to this difficult medical field, and it is set out in the most ordinary simple language. In it, from a professional point of view, without escalating, unnecessary fears and bigotry, the most important thing is told about what you need to know about women's diseases, as well as about menopause, first menstruation and other features that haunt the fair sex throughout life.
It is especially valuable that the author of the book is a professional gynecologist who strives so that a woman of any age and level of education can understand herself, the problems that occur to her. Candidate of Medical Sciences Lubnin easily explains all the features of gynecological diseases and abnormalities that an average woman may encounter, talks about the danger they pose, how to identify them, make diagnoses and treat them.
Of course, this book does not replace visits to a gynecologist who can conduct a professional examination and take important tests for diagnosis. But it will make it possible to figure out whether it is worth fearing the problems that arise or if everything may not be as scary as the doctors sometimes present. Lubnin helps everyone to control the medical indications of their body, ask the right questions at the gynecologistâs appointment, for example, about the need for a particular drug or analysis. The most important thing this book can help is to understand when the procedure is necessary and justified, and when its appointment is provoked by profit or self-interest for the doctor. This is especially true if you seek help at a private clinic, there you can often encounter the so-called excess treatment.
A separate part of the book is devoted to the nature of orgasm. Gynecologist Lubnin, who has received about 50,000 patients during his career, authoritatively claims that every woman is given a bright orgasm. Only some have to learn how to receive it, for this it may be necessary to take some actions on their own, a lot in this matter depends on the partner. In any case, with the help of this book the situation will be able to change for the better. After all, a professional gynecologist without a drop of cunning and pretense will tell about all the features of his specialty.