Novels about doctors or illness

[funnyperson]

What fiction/non fiction/authors have you read which gives a memorable and/or moving account of doctors or people who are ill?

eg Dr Zhivago/Pasternak
AJ Cronin

Atul Gawande, a surgeon and also a brilliant writer. Why do you ask?

I have just read Lydia Cassat reading the Morning Paper, which is about somebody who's ill.

Cathleen Schine - Alice In Bed.

A big A J Croninfsn here

*fan

I really enjoyed: "Trust me I'm a (Junior) Doctor by Max Pemberton"

Ignore the random quote marks there.

Little women?

I would thoroughly recommend 'Sisters in Arms' by Nicola Tyrer, a non fictional account of the British Army nurses who served in the second world war. Absolutely fascinating, very moving and quite emotional.

Some really interesting suggestions here. Keep them coming!

Bluestocking Just interested. I was looking at this
adc.bmj.com/content/suppl/2003/06/24/88.7.635.DC1/886545ReadingList.pdf
and thought there must be others generally and wondered what mumsnetters might recommend.

The Victorian Chaise by M Laski, about a sick woman in the 1950s resting on a chaise longue, who is tranported back to being a victorian invalid.
Marianne Dreams - a children's classic, but I still read it now and again. Scary.

sorry - The Victorian Chaise Longue

The Good Doctor by Damon Galgut.

Interesting and shocking.

set in south africa

and The Plague by Albert Camus.

Probably my favourite of his novels. It's about (unsurprisingly) a plague in a town in Algeria and the whole place is quarantined. the doctor (Rieux) is kind of the hero, but it's not quite as simple as that.

Hilary Mantel wrote a diary of her time in hospital, which is wonderful, painful writing...you can read the whole thing here in the LRB

www.lrb.co.uk/v32/n21/hilary-mantel/diary

sorry, not sure that is the whole of it - its called Ink in the Blood: A Hospital Diary

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese about doctors in Ethiopia and the US was one of my favourite books read in 2010.

These sound really interesting and by no means familiar- thank you!

Direct Red by Gabriel Weston is excellent (non-fiction)
Anything by Atul Gawande.
There's a newish book out that I'm looking forward to reading - Pulitzer prize winning - by an oncologist called Siddartha Mukerjee - The Emperor of all Maladies.
House of God is about junior doctors in America but is iconic for all junior doctors and the terminology has found it's way everywhere!

Also - John Diamond wrote very movingly on cancer. And Oscar Moore who used to write for the Guardian under the 'PWA' column (person with AIDS) in the 1990's made a lasting impression on me. He died the year that I qualified.

verysmellyeli that Siddartha Mukerjee book looks amazing, thanks for the tip-off :)

So much for that by Lionel Shriver is excellent.

No Laughing Matter by Joseph Heller, - an account of when he had GBS - v. interesting.

Also The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a very interesting book - not a novel as such, but certainly worth reading.

An easy read, but I found it quite upsetting - My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult.

Cancer Ward by Solzhenitzyn (sp?)
So Much For That is good and depressingly probably foretelling for the UK.

The Good Doctor is an interesting one. Our bookclub did it and most disliked it, thinking it slow but I thought OK.

I read The Emperor of All Maladies recently, it's a history of cancer treatment in the US but it's a far more interesting read than that makes it sound.