Medical Research
Neff Rotter, writing as Elizabeth Neff Walker, assembled this chart of the books she used for medical background for her medical center novels. Most of these books make for fascinating reading; they're of the "My life as a doctor" or "My life as a nurse" type. Most, though not all, of them are out of print and have to be stumbled across at used book stores or inter-library-loaned when your own library doesn't have them.
When she has specific questions concerning a medical problem in a story, she consults one of her doctor-friends, or the Mayo Clinic Family Health Book. If you'd like to ask her questions about her research or any of these books, please select the Contact Us button.
Medical Research Book Chart
| Title | Author | Specialty |
|---|---|---|
| Surgeon! A Year in the Life of an Inner City Doctor | Richard T. Caleel | surgery |
| Nurse | Peggy Anderson | nursing |
| Intensive Care | Echo Heron | nursing |
| On Death and Dying | Elizabeth Kubhler-Ross | study |
| Night Calls | Henry Eisenberg | OB/GYN |
| Becoming a Doctor | Melvin Konner | Med. School |
| Life & Death on 10 West | Eric Lax | hospital |
| Kill as Few Patients as Possible | Oscar London | Internal Med |
| Woman/Doctor | Jane Patterson | OB/GYN |
| A Woman in Residence | Michelle Harrison | OB/GYN |
| Intern | Dr. X | Internship |
| A Not Entirely Benign Procedure | Perri Klass | Pediatrics |
| Healing the Wounds | David Hilfiker | Gen. Practice |
| Five Patients | Michael Crichton | general |
| Solo Practice | Elizabeth Morgan | Plastic Surgery |
| Emergency Room Diary | Theodore Isaac Rubin | ER rotation |
| Hospital | Michael Medved | Calif. Hosp. |
| Life & Death: The Story of a Hospital | Ina Yalof | Columbia-Presbyterian |
| Surgeon under the Knife | William Nolen | Surgery |
| MD:Doctors Talk about Themselves | John Pekkanen | All specialties |
| Bag Balm & Duct Tape | Beach Conger | Vermont dr. |
| The House of God | Samuel Shem | Fiction |
| The Hospital:The View from Bellevue | L. Karp | hospital |
| Lovestrong | Dorothy Greenbaum | Pediatrics |
| Calling Dr. Horowitz | Horowitz | Internship |
| A Leg to Stand On | Oliver Sacks | Neurologist's personal |
| A Taste of My Own Medicine | Ed Rosenbaum | sick doctor |
| A Year Long Night | Robert Klitzman | Internship |
| Code Blue | Barbara Huttmann | nursing |
| Getting Better | Kenneth Klein | Internship |
| House Officer: Becoming a Medical Specialist | Richard Cohen | Study |
| Practice Makes Perfect | Edward Vernon | English GP |
| Battles of Life & Death | David Hellerstein | internship |
| Mastering Medicine | Robert Combs | Study |
| The Cutting Edge | Joni Lynn Scalia | Surgery |
| "You're the Only One Here Who Doesn't Look Like a Doctor" | Alison Merrill | training |
| Vital Signs | Fitzhugh Mullan | sick doctor |
| Welcome, Silence | Carol North | schizophrenia |
| Letters to a Young Doctor | Richard Selzer | Surgery |
| The Making of a Surgeon | William A. Nolen | Surgery |
| Working in a Very Small Place | Mark Shelton(re:Janetta) | Neurosurgery |
| Skin Deep | Donald T. Moynihan & Shirley Hartman | Plastic Surgery |
| Brain Surgeon | Laurence Shainberg | Neurosurgery |
| The Intern Blues | Robert Marion | Pediatrics |
| Brain Surgeon (1952) | William Sharpe | early neurosurgery |
| Gentle Vengeance | Charles LeBaron | Harvard Med. School |
| In the Blink of an Eye | Alan Doelp | Ped. ER |
| Through My Eyes | Charles D. Melman | Ophthalmologist |
| Invasive Procedures | Mark Kramer | surgeons |
| "Just a Nurse" | Kraegel & Kochoyeanos | nurses |
| Emergency | Saundra Shoher w/Ann Loring | ER stuff |
| A Surgeon's World | William A. Nolen | Surgery |
| Children's Hospital | Peggy Anderson | Pediatric |
| The Unkindest Cut | Marcia Millman | Sociology |
| Emergency Room: Confessions of an E.R. Doctor | Edith Alston & David Cutler | ER |
| A Coronary Event | Michael Halbestam & S. Lesher | Cardiologist & patient |
| Women Physicians | Judith Lorber | Sociology |
| Shocktrauma | Jon Franklin & Alan Doelp | ER |
| Matters Gray & White | Russell Martin | Neurology |
| Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery | Richard Selzer | Surgery |
| The Nurse's Story | Carol Gino | nurse |
| Emergency Doctor | Edward Ziegler w/Dr. Lewis Goldfrank | ER |
| Toscanini's Fumble | Harold Klawans | Neurology |
| "We Have a Donor" | Mark Dowie | Transplants |
| The Doctors Mayo | Helen Clapesattle | Historical |
| The Education of a Doctor: My First Year on the Wards | John McNab | Internship |
| Delivery | Jennifer Crichton | Nurse/Mid-wife-fiction |
| Half Life | Priscilla Scherer | nurse |
| Other Women's Children | Perri Klass | Pediatrics Fiction |
| Health & Happiness | Diane Johnson | Fiction |
| Neuro | David Noonan | Neurology & N/S |
| Lone Woman (Elizabeth Blackwell) | Dorothy C. Wilson | History |
| A Piece of My Mind | JAMA essays | various doctors |
| Home Before Morning | Lynda Van Devanter | RN-Vietnam |
| A Physician Faces Cancer in Himself | Samuel Sanes | sick doctor |
| What Your Doctor Won't Tell You | Jane Heimlich | alternative medicine |
| Harvest Moon: Portrait of a Nursing Home | Sallie Tisdale | nursing home |
| Confessions of a Knife | Richard Selzer | surgery |
| Newton's Madness | Harold Klawans | neurology |
| Expected Miracles: Surgeons at Work | Joan Cassell | sociology |
| Physicians Observed | David S. Slavitt | sociology |
| Woman's Doctor: A Year in the Life of an OB/GYN | William J. Sweeney | OB/GYN |
| Caring | Annette Swackhamer & Ralph W. Moss | nursing |
| 12, 20 & 5: A Doctor's Year in Vietnam | John A. Parrish | Vietnam |
| Hearts | Thomas Thompson | RE: DeBakey & Cooley CV surgeons |
| The Boy Who Felt No Pain | Robert Marion | Pediatrics |
| First Do No Harm: Reflections on Becoming a Brain Surgeon | J. Kenyon Rainer | N/Surgery |
| Trials of an Expert Witness | Harold Klawans | neurology |
| The Sorcerer's Apprentice | Sallie Tisdale | sociology |
| Not Quite a Miracle | Jon Franklin & Alan Doelp | neuro-surgery |
| The World of Surgery, 1945-1985 | James D. Hardy | surgery |
| Gifted Hands | Ben Carson with Cecil Murphey | neuro-surgery |
| Dr. Frau | Grace H. Kaiser | osteopath |
| Rusty's Story | Carol Gino RN | epilepsy |
| Bellevue | Don Gold | Bellevue hospital |
| Hippocrates' Handmaidens: Women Married to Physicians | Esther Nitzberg | sociology |
| Woman Doctor | Florence Haseltine & Yvonne Yaw | intern |
| The Making of a Woman Surgeon | Elizabeth Morgan | plastic surgery training |
| Transplant | William H. Frist | CV surgery |
| Paramedic | Paul D. Shapiro w/Mary B. Shapiro | paramedic |
| Learning to Play God: The Coming of Age of a Young Dr. | Robert Marion | pediatrics |
| Hospital: Life and Death in a Major Medical Center | Martin O'Malley | Toronto General |
| On Our Own | Karon White Gibson, Joy Smith Catterson, & Patricia Skalka | nurses |
| The Making of a Psychiatrist | David S. Viscott | Psychiatry |
| The Bitter Pill: Doctors, Patients & Failed Expectations | Martin R. Lipp | sociology |
| R.N. | Jane Carpineto | 3 nurses |
| Ward 402 | Ronald J. Glasser | Pediatrics |
| A Surgeon's Book of Hope | William A. Nolen | Surgery winners |
| Medical School | Donald Drake | med. school class |
| Off the Pedestal | Michael A. Greenberg | Making med. work |
| Go Out in Joy | Nina Herrmann Donnelly | Hospital chaplain |
| Doctor Purgatory | Jan Marks | doc on drugs |
| Making Medical Decisions | Thomas Scully & Celia Scully | ethics |
| Koop | C. Everett Koop | ped surgery |
| The Making of a Modern Psychiatrist | Mark Warren | psychiatry |
| Mental Hospital (1961) | Morton M. Hunt | "Pilgrim State" |
| I Married a Psychiatrist | Louise Pfister | psychiatrist's wife |
| Nurses: The Human Touch | Michael Brown | nurses by specialty |
| Talking Medicine: America's Doctors Tell Their Stories | Peter MacGarr Rabinowitz | Interviews |
| Ethics on Call: A Medical Ethicist Shows How to Take Charge of Life-and-Death Choices | Nancy Dubler & David Nimmons | medical ethics |
| Last Wish | Betty Rollin | suicide |
| A Bomb in the Brain | Steve Fishman | patient's experience |
| Gifts of Time | Fred J. Epstein w/Shinberg | pediatric neurosurgery |
| First Do No Harm | Lisa Belkin | ethics |
| MD | B.H. Kean | parasitologist |
| Maternity Ward | Susan Stanley | big city ob |
| Baby | Joseph A Stirt | anesthesiologist's own baby |
| The Dinosaur Man: Tales of Madness & Enchantment from the Back Ward | Susan Baur | psych tales |
| As Real as It Gets | Carol Pogash | SF Gen & AIDS |
| To Be a Surgeon | Richard Furman | CT surgery |
| The Puzzle People | Thomas Starzl | liver transplants |
| Condition Critical | Echo Heron | nursing |
| Baby Doctor | Perri Klass | pediatrician |
| EMT: Rescue! | Pat Ivey | paramedic |
| The Healing Blade | Edw. J. Sylvester | RE: Robert Spetzer neurosurgeon |
| How We Die | Sherwin B. Nuland | surgeon |
| Medical Malpractice | Frank J. Edwards | ER doc crisis |
| Unnatural Death: Confessions of a Medical Examiner | Michael M. Baden | pathologist |
| Many Sleepless Nights | Lee Gutkind | transplants mainly Pgh |
| Learning How the Heart Beats | Claire McCarthy | pediatrics |
| A Savage Enquiry | Wendy Savage | English OB/GYN |
| My Own Country | Abraham Verghese | AIDS doctor |
| Listening to Prozac | Peter D. Kramer | psychiatrist Re: Prozac |
| The Houseman's Tale | Colin Douglas | British med. training fiction |
| Outrageous Practices | Leslie Laurence & Beth Weinhouse | medical mistreatment of women |
| A Parting Gift | Frances Sharkey | pediatrician re: death |
| A Family of Doctors | David Hellerstein | 5 generations of MDs |
| Dial 911 | Lloyd and Herman | paramedics |
| Not All of Us Are Saints | David Hilfiker | doctor to the poor |
| Unnatural Death | Michael Baden | forensic pathologist |
| The Hot Zone | Richard Preston | deadly virus stories |
| The Hospice Handbook | Larry Beresford | guide to hospice care |
| Having Babies | Thomas Congdon | obstetrical practice |
| I Want to Grow Hair, I Want to Grow Up, I Want to Go to Boise | Erma Bombeck | children surviving cancer |
| A Child Shall Lead Them | Diane Komp | pediatric oncologist |
| Death and Dignity | Timothy Quill | physician and terminally ill patients |
| The 36 Hour Day | Mace and Rabins | RE: Alzheimer's Disease |
| Hospital | Sydney Lewis | Cook County Hospital |
| DOC | R.E. Losee | Montana GP & orthopedist |
| Elizabeth Garrett Anderson | Jo Manton | England's first woman doctor |
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