The website Shepherd.com offers readers a new way to discover books that may interest them. Each page describes one book by a contributing author, and five others on a related theme. I was invited to create a page on a theme of my choice, and having just published a memoir about my own migraine, I decided to look for books written by other doctors who had been patients themselves. I was less interested in the medical details than in the way the illness experience had shaped their personal and professional lives. I came up with a varied list of recommendations.

Doctors can face particular challenges when they become patients. The change of status may seem humiliating, as poignantly described in the saddest book on my list, by an eminent surgeon who felt himself reduced to “Just another old man with prostate cancer”. On the positive side, doctors who are still working may well become better clinicians especially as regards communication with patients and relatives. This comes through in a collection of vignettes about the everyday clinical work of a doctor with a long history of ulcerative colitis. A memoir by a medical student who was rendered quadriplegic in a car accident, but went on to qualify and build a successful career, is an inspiring read showing what determination can achieve. My two most unusual book choices are by doctors whose illness experience proved a catalyst for a move away from orthodox medicine towards alternative fields with a spiritual focus.

To see details of my list please click on the image below, or visit this page.

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