From the classics till modern works of fiction and non-fiction, the central exploration of literature has been around questions of life and/or mortality. Human perception of life has struggled with accommodating death, and intimations of mortality have fuelled great works, right from the Greek classics. The meaning of life and death has often been what has spurred authors to dip deep and reach high. Great works have laced philosophy with a language skill that surpasses most others’, rendering them unforgettable. For doctors, death need not be philosophical or phantasmic, for them, intimations of mortality are real, and the cessation of life, palpable. In their professional life, the possibility of death always hangs overhead like a Damocles sword.
At the heart of it, perhaps this is what makes a medical biography gripping — a doctor’s intimate dalliance with death, nearly daily.
Unexpected antagonist
In Paul Kalanithi’s poetic autobiography published posthumously, When Breath Becomes Air, death is the unexpected antagonist, appearing in the form of lung cancer that finally fells him. The bright American neurosurgeon finds his unnatural debility in his 30s worrisome, but stodgily plods on, ignoring his symptoms, or putting up with them, so poised as he was on the brink of promise, and a grand new world. Written in such evocative prose, as he battles cancer, When Breath Becomes Air is a gentlemanly approach to a rugged disease.
American surgeon, writer, and public health researcher Atul Gawande is a prolific writer, and his books are quite popular on the charts too. Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End is an honest, but at the same time, personalised look into end of life care. Gawande goes in for the real, and does not sugar coat the inescapable reality of ageing, and the squalor that could result from that — pain and death, all immutable.
Cell science
For Siddhartha Mukerjee’s first book, Emperor of all Maladies, he chose to tell the biography of cancer. With his style, best described as breathtaking, he easily sets a relatable context that even non-scientists are familiar with. As he dives headlong into cell science, he also reaches into his coat pockets to grab a dash of wonder, awe, and the everyday. Cancer is the central character to which the ancients and moderns, have to pay obeisance, in this much-feted book.
It is the empathy and personalised attention that doctors exhibit that elevates them, we learn from best-selling author Abraham Verghese’s My Own Country. While his latest work of fiction The Covenant of Water is a stunning inter-generational novel hinged on matters medical, his first ever book is deeply sad, lonely and yet hopeful. An infectious diseases expert struggling with HIV, as yet undiagnosed, and as yet without treatment, this autobiographical note highlights the value of empathy, of staying with patients even when their own perplexed and fearful families have withdrawn from caregiving. In this book, there are the unmistakable signs of what will go on to make Verghese the beloved author he is.
Inspiring stories
Several giants in the Indian health care space have also seemingly effortlessly put pen to paper to generate tales that have kept readers glued to the books, and inspired them. Legendary Indian nephrologist M.K. Mani hails the Hindu god of death, in his autobiography Yamaraja’s Brother (available in digital format too). His strong, well-known views on the practice of medicine, ethics and doctor-patient relationship come through unequivocally.
Kafeel Khan’s intimate encounter with death, in the Gorakhpur Hospital Tragedy is an earthy, pulsating account of a tragedy in which many children died, one where the aftermath of revenge and the blame game were as shocking as the deaths itself.
Pranay Gupte’s biography of Apollo Hospitals’ founder Prathap C. Reddy, Healer is a tome that outlines in a detailed manner, the revolution in private health care in India that his protagonist essayed. At a time when doctors were heading out of the country to carry on a lucrative practice, this is the inspiring story of a doctor who came back to serve his country and contribute immensely. Incidentally, that journey too began when Dr. Reddy lost a patient he could not help.
Lessons from life
Eminent diabetologist V. Mohan’s book Making Excellence a Habit is in the realm of a self-help book that will actually help the reader. By his own confession, he would have been a literatteur if he had his way, and that arms this book which pours in energy, passion, faith and a lived life as lessons. That, along with what has become the hallmark of a good doctor, empathy for his patients, elevates this easy read to one you might want to display on your book shelf.
It’s the personalisation that ultimately saves the day for any medical book. While keeping the formula to the medical text book, autobiographies score on establishing a close working relationship with patients and their families in a particular Indian setting.
Kaveri Nambisan’s A Luxury Called Health is a sweeping look at how health care was built up from scratch in India, offering a unique view of rural health centres serving in the most remote areas of the country. It is a book about patients, leaders, philanthropists, nuns, nurses, swamis and surgical assistants. It is, equally, a visceral record of being with her husband Vijay as he fights cancer.
