Best Medical Professional Biographies Books of 2025

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot tells the story of a poor Southern tobacco farmer whose cells, taken without her knowledge, became one of the most important tools in medicine. Though her HeLa cells were vital for developing the polio vaccine, uncovering secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb's effects, and leading to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning, and gene mapping, Henrietta Lacks remains virtually unknown. Skloot brilliantly shows how the story of the Lacks family is inextricably connected to the dark history of experimentation on African Americans. This book is a must-read for those interested in the history and ethics of medical research.

When Breath Becomes Air is an inspiring memoir about a young neurosurgeon's journey through life, death, and everything in between. Paul Kalanithi's diagnosis with stage IV lung cancer forced him to confront his own mortality, transforming him from a doctor to a patient and new father. Kalanithi wrestles with questions about the meaning of life, the value of human identity, and the importance of nurturing new life as another fades away. This profoundly moving and exquisitely observed memoir is a guide and a gift to us all. It is a unique and unforgettable read that will stay with you long after you finish the last page.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A searing, deeply moving memoir of illness and recovery that traces one young woman’s journey from diagnosis to remission to re-entry into “normal” life—from the author of the Life, Interrupted column in The New York Times. ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, The Rumpus, She Reads, Library Journal, Booklist • “I was immersed for the whole ride and would follow Jaouad anywhere. . . . Her writing restores the moon, lights the way as we learn to endure the unknown.”—Chanel Miller, The New York Times Book Review “Beautifully crafted . . . affecting . . . a transformative read . . . Jaouad’s insights about the self, connectedness, uncertainty and time speak to all of us.”—The Washington Post In the summer after graduating from college, Suleika Jaouad was preparing, as they say in commencement speeches, to enter “the real world.” She had fallen in love and moved to Paris to pursue her dream of becoming a war correspondent. The real world she found, however, would take her into a very different kind of conflict zone.. It started with an itch—first on her feet, then up her legs, like a thousand invisible mosquito bites. Next came the exhaustion, and the six-hour naps that only deepened her fatigue. Then a trip to the doctor and, a few weeks shy of her twenty-third birthday, a diagnosis: leukemia, with a 35 percent chance of survival. Just like that, the life she had imagined for herself had gone up in flames. By the time Jaouad flew home to New York, she had lost her job, her apartment, and her independence. She would spend much of the next four years in a hospital bed, fighting for her life and chronicling the saga in a column for The New York Times.. When Jaouad finally walked out of the cancer ward—after countless rounds of chemo, a clinical trial, and a bone marrow transplant—she was, according to the doctors, cured. But as she would soon learn, a cure is not where the work of healing ends; it’s where it begins. She had spent the past 1,500 days in desperate pursuit of one goal—to survive. And now that she’d done so, she realized that she had no idea how to live.. How would she reenter the world and live again? How could she reclaim what had been lost? Jaouad embarked—with her new best friend, Oscar, a scruffy terrier mutt—on a 100-day, 15,000-mile road trip across the country. She set out to meet some of the strangers who had written to her during her years in the hospital: a teenage girl in Florida also recovering from cancer; a teacher in California grieving the death of her son; a death-row inmate in Texas who’d spent his own years confined to a room. What she learned on this trip is that the divide between sick and well is porous, that the vast majority of us will travel back and forth between these realms throughout our lives. Between Two Kingdoms is a profound chronicle of survivorship and a fierce, tender, and inspiring exploration of what it means to begin again.

Faster Cures by Michael Milken is a fascinating memoir and recent history of medicine that details his work to accelerate medicine's evolution from a dark past to a bright future. The book offers a unique personal journey of Milken from his early views in the 1950s to his storied careers in finance and health. Milken recognized the promise of immunology more than twenty-five years ago and provided crucial support for the emergence of immunotherapy as a powerful life-saving treatment. The book is an inspiring crusade to accelerate cures and treatments so that more people around the world can live longer, healthier, and more meaningful lives.

Travelers to Unimaginable Lands: Stories of Dementia, the Caregiver, and the Human Brain is a compelling read that blends science and storytelling to explore the intricate relationship between dementia patients and their caregivers. Author Dasha Kiper shares poignant yet unsentimental stories of individuals caring for their loved ones with dementia, highlighting the existential dilemmas created by the disease. The book examines how the workings of a healthy brain prevent us from truly understanding the cognitively impaired one and the neurological obstacles to caregiving. Overall, Travelers to Unimaginable Lands offers solace, perspective, and a fresh perspective on dementia caregiving that will change the way readers see the disorder and those who care for them.

"Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife" is a captivating memoir that delves into the afterlife experience of Dr. Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon who was once a skeptic of near-death experiences. After falling into a coma due to a rare illness, Alexander's journey beyond this world and encounter with a divine being changed his perspective on life, death, and spirituality. This book offers a unique perspective on the afterlife and the possibility of a higher power. It is an inspiring read that challenges readers to think beyond the limits of science and embrace the unknown.

This book, "How to Starve Cancer: Without Starving Yourself," is a groundbreaking approach to cancer treatment. The author, Jane, shares her personal journey of discovering a unique cocktail of off-label drugs and supplements that effectively starve cancer stem cells. Her approach not only stopped the growth of cancer but made it disappear altogether. This book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand more about cancer and unconventional treatments. It is inspiring, informative, and offers a new perspective on cancer treatment. Overall, this book is a game-changer in the fight against cancer.

** Winner of the 2020 Nautilus Award in Psychology **. Anxiety Is Unavoidable: Suffering Is Optional. “Anxiety Rx is unlike any book on anxiety and a must-read for anyone who suffers with chronic worry.” – Nicole LePera, PhD, The Holistic PsychologistOn February 8, 2013, I was a highly anxious and burned-out fifty-two-year-old physician. That night, as I left my clinic in my usual chronic state of anxiety, I wondered if life was worth living. But I had to be on stage as a stand-up comedian an hour later, so killing myself would have to wait. However, I never got to the comedy club. I suffered an injury that night that would end my medical career.I’ve dealt with anxiety since I was a teenager. My father was schizophrenic and bipolar, and the chaos and pain of his illness created tremendous alarm in my system. My mother did her best to love and take care of my brother and me, but she had her own issue with chronic anxiety. I often say my mother was neurotic and my father was psychotic, so my psyche didn’t stand much of a chance!I wrote this book to make my father’s eventual suicide and the suffering of my family mean something: to help others like me who experienced chronic worry to understand and fix the pain that was sucking the life out of their lives. I have degrees and advanced training in medicine, neuroscience, and developmental psychology, but much of what I’ll share with you came out of my experiences in very unscientific places. This book is unique in its blend of hard neuroscience and soft spirit.For over thirty years, I searched for relief from anxiety and saw over fifty practitioners ranging from Indian shamanic energy healers to highly accomplished psychiatrists. (I was lucky I was a doctor so I could afford to be a patient.) Have you, too, gone to extraordinary lengths to resolve your chronic compulsion to worry and are still suffering? Read on.What makes this book different is a relentless focus on calming anxiety at its true source, which I will share with you in detail. That source is in a place most doctors and psychologists fail to explore, and that oversight is why the positive effects of most anxiety therapies tend to wear off over time.Although I’ll talk about my patients’ experiences with anxiety as well as my own, everything within these pages has been vetted, explored, and applied to my own life. The ideas and practices are unique, novel, and effective. This is my life’s work and the ultimate book of high-impact solutions for escaping the trap of chronic worry. I truly do not want you to suffer as I have!I’ve gone from being a hapless victim of my anxiety, never knowing when it would end, to having a path that helps me every single time anxiety comes up.. People with anxiety are confused because they don't know what is happening to them. In this book, I'll show you exactly what is going on in your mind and your body and exactly what you can do about it.What is in this book has changed my life very much for the better, and I know it will do the same for you.