Best Books for Healthcare Workers
This is my list of must-read books for healthcare workers that have changed my personal outlook on life, death, + medicine & impacted the way in which I provide care for patients. My list is always growing + I’d love to hear your favorite reads!
A must read book for anyone. As told by Dr. Victor Frankl – a psychiatrist + prisoner in Nazi concentration camps. It’s such a wonderful book filled with so much wisdom, despite the tragedy that he + so many experienced in their lifetime, + the importance of finding meaning in our individual lives.
“I told my comrades that human life, under any circumstances, never ceases to have a meaning, and that this infinite meaning of life includes suffering and dying, privation and death.”
02. Being Mortal
One of a few books by Atul Gawande that I love. As hard as it is to talk about death… Some of the messages + pearls he shares in this book have resonated with me + single handedly changed my approach to treating patients. As we all age, + as we as healthcare workers care for others that are aging, there should be an increasing importance of preserving the things that are most important to us (individually). It’s also important to highlight the balance of quantity vs. quality. We, as healthcare workers, are great at keeping people alive, providing an antidote to symptoms or proactively try to prevent catastrophe – but do we stop to ask the patient if that is something that they want? This book really challenged me to ask if what I’m doing respects the patients wishes + honors the way in which they have lived their lives before this point.
An autobiography written by Dr. Paul Kalanithi, a neurosurgeon battling Stage 4 lung cancer during his last year of residency at Stanford. Dr. Kalanithi tells the heartbreaking story of his experience becoming a physician + caring for the sick to becoming the patient, facing his own death.
Regardless of your scope of medicine, we as healthcare providers will care for patients who have experienced trauma. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the worlds experts on trauma, explores the ways in which trauma alters human physiology + the way in which we interact with the world. With a deeper understanding, it can help us, as healthcare workers, to better comprehend + explain the way in which patients may present to us + how we can best provide care for them through a trauma-informed lens.
Another wonderful book on the impacts of trauma. As mentioned above, we as healthcare workers will encounter the effects of trauma on a regular basis in our patients. Approaching patients with a more trauma-informed lens can be immensely beneficial. Written by Oprah + Dr. Bruce Perry, who is also a world expert on trauma. Instead of asking “what is wrong with you”, we should be asking “what happened to you?”. I listened to this book as an audiobook + I cannot recommend it enough! It was read personally by Dr. Perry + Oprah, who shares some of her own experiences with trauma + adversity growing up.
Another great book by Dr. Atul Gawande – a surgeon + public health researcher. He presents a dive into the utility of a checklist, the ways in which various industries use them for safety + success, & how medicine can adapt similar processes to improve outcomes. As medicine continues to evolve in complexity + volume, we might be able to take a few notes from the FAA (just to name one industry) that has utilizes checklists regularly for successful outcomes.
On my To Read list:
- When Death becomes Life: Notes from a transplant surgeon – on creating life from loss
- The Comfort Garden: Tales from the Trauma Unit
- Complications: A Surgeon’s Notes on Imperfect Science. By Atul Gawande
