Medical Technology

Medicine has become inhuman, to disastrous effect. The doctor-patient relationship - the heart of medicine - is broken: doctors are too distracted and overwhelmed to truly connect with their patients, and medical errors and misdiagnoses abound. In Deep Medicine, leading physician Eric Topol reveals how artificial intelligence can help. AI has the potential to transform everything doctors do, from notetaking and medical scans to diagnosis and treatment, greatly cutting down the cost of medicine and reducing human mortality.

The Lobotomist explores one of the darkest chapters of American medicine: the desperate attempt to treat the hundreds of thousands of psychiatric patients in need of help during the middle decades of the 20th century. Into this crisis stepped Walter Freeman, MD, who saw a solution in lobotomy, a brain operation intended to reduce the severity of psychotic symptoms. Drawing on Freeman's documents and interviews with Freeman's family, Jack El-Hai takes a penetrating look at the life and work of this complex scientific genius.

In 1949, Ron Losee, a young Yale Medical School graduate, headed west with his wife and small daughter to begin the practice of medicine. They settled in Ennis, Montana, in a log cabin that also became their office and lab. Patients made themselves at home in the living room. One small bag held all their medical equipment. It was a proud moment when a patient first called Losee "Doc." His fee on that occasion was three dollars.

Henry Marsh has spent a lifetime operating on the surgical frontline. There have been exhilarating highs and devastating lows, but his love for the practice of neurosurgery has never wavered. Prompted by his retirement from his full-time job in the NHS, and through his continuing work in Nepal and Ukraine, Henry has been forced to reflect more deeply about what 40 years spent handling the human brain has taught him.

Just months ago, millions of people were stunned by ChatGPT's amazing abilities–and its bizarre hallucinations. But that was 2022. GPT-4 is now here, with smarter, more accurate, and deeper technical knowledge. GPT-4 and its competitors and followers are on the verge of transforming medicine. But with lives on the line, you need to understand these technologies–stat.

It all started with a Hob Nob. As Dr Matt Morgan, an intensive care consultant, examined a patient who had suffered a cardiac arrest after inhaling some biscuit crumbs, he saw a flock of birds fly past the window. They must inhale objects all the time when flying, how do they survive? he thought to himself. This began an investigation that spanned continents, species and millennia. For animal science has so much to teach us about human medicine. While some of the overlaps and parallels are obvious, there is so much more that we have learnt from the animal world.

A Life in Trauma is a frank, remarkable account of a career spent helping others, offering a positive outlook on the potential of Ireland’s healthcare system in the future. Concern. Compassion. Doubt. Despair. Anger. Hope. Imagine juggling these feelings every day in a situation where your work could mean the difference between someone's life or death.

The Secret Body is a gripping drama of discovery and a landmark account of the dawning revolution in human health that reveals a hitherto invisible universe within each of us.

In this compelling memoir, Jane Hawking relates the inside story of her extraordinary marriage. As Stephen's academic renown soared, his body was collapsing under the assaults of motor neurone disease, and Jane's candid account of trying to balance his 24-hour care with the needs of their growing family is inspirational. This is a book about optimism, love and change that will resonate with listeners everywhere.

Since the dawn of humankind, mental illness has been one of our greatest causes of suffering as a species. But for the majority of our history, its causes have remained a mystery. Professor Karl Deisseroth shares his breakthrough discovery, optogenetics, a biological technique that allows us to decipher the brain's inner workings using light. With moving and revelatory stories from both personal and professional experience, he reveals what mental illnesses really are, why we suffer from them and the unexpected role they have played in our evolution.

The remarkable untold story of how a group of sixteen determined women used the power of the collective and the tools of science to inspire ongoing radical change. This is a triumphant account of progress, whilst reminding us that further action is needed.

What if every business owner or manager could combine cutting-edge technology with the warmth of personal connection to keep customers coming back for more and sending their friends and family? Drawing lessons from the industry-leading business practices at One Medical, a brand transforming the customer experience in healthcare, All Business Is Personal gives readers tools to blend the powerful benefits of today’s rapidly improving technology with individuals’ unique talents, all in the name of providing only the best for their customers.

In Tell Me the Planets, Ben Platts-Mills tells stories about his work with survivors of brain injury, offering a rare glimpse into the world as seen through their eyes: charismatic Danny, whose criminal past has left him paralysed down one side, but who now helps others worse off than himself; Sid, whose memory for the present lasts only moments; and Liah, who is caught in a battle with the care system threatening to make her homeless.

The Headache Godfather traces the life of Seymour Diamond, MD, who was born in 1925, the son of Jewish immigrants from Ukraine and Slovakia, in Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Diamond revolutionized the practice of headache as a medical specialty when he opened the United States' first private headache practice, the Diamond Headache Clinic, in 1974. It quickly became a headache haven for sufferers from around the world.

In the early days of the Cold War, a spirit of desperate scientific rivalry birthed a different kind of space race: not the race to outer space that we all know, but a race to master the inner space of the human body. While surgeons on either side of the Iron Curtain competed to become the first to transplant organs like the kidney and heart, a young American neurosurgeon had an even more ambitious thought: Why not transplant the brain?

In this book, Prusiner tells the remarkable story of his discovery of prions - infectious proteins that replicate and cause disease but surprisingly contain no genetic material - and reveals how superb and meticulous science is actually practiced with talented teams of researchers who persevere. He recounts the frustrations and rewards of years of research and offers fascinating portraits of his peers as they raced to discover the causes of fatal brain diseases.

Nine million Americans are touched by aneurysms during their lifetimes. This is one story of love. Brainstorm is the candid and powerful memoir of the author's harrowing experience of an aneurysm and his road to recovery. It is a journey of love and devotion and a clash of medical beliefs and countercultures.

The Nobel laureate Otto Warburg was widely regarded in his day as one of the most important biochemists of the 20th century, a man whose research was integral to humanity’s understanding of cancer. He was also among the most despised figures in Nazi Germany. As a Jewish homosexual living openly with his male partner, Warburg represented all that the Third Reich abhorred. Yet Hitler and his top advisors dreaded cancer, and protected Warburg in the hope that he could cure it.

Are you a sucker for all things animal? You won't want to miss this heartwarming biography of James Herriot - one of the most famous and deeply-loved vets the world has ever known. Herriot is remembered as the modest Scotsman who wrote books that became worldwide best sellers, films, audiobooks, and a much-loved television show. But no one has ever seen him as distinguished writer Graham Lord portrays him here.

Hear about some of the world's most messed-up medical mishaps. Find out how each procedure, tool, or surgery failed, the basic science that was missed, and what doctors learned from their mistakes.