The Emperor of all Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee

A Biography of Cancer. How could I even think of reviewing this book. If I could say it in three words, it would be – A Must read. For people who like to read about medicine and surgeries. Siddhartha Mukherjee makes it an enthralling read, despite the heavy subject.

Siddhartha Mukherjee takes us on a journey from the ancient times to cancer in today’s world – a four thousand-year history. A very relevant book, in a world where almost all of us know someone affected by the Big C. It is a wonderfully written history of Cancer and it’s treatments. The tale of how physicians were baffled, frustrated by it, how they analysed and fought to conquer this terrible disease. A book that is as much about the physicians that fought the disease as the patients who fought and lived through the pain and the trauma of the disease – some emerging triumphant, while others losing the battle.

Mukherjee calls this book , ‘an attempt to enter the mind of this immortal illness, to understand its personality, to demystify its behavior’. And that is exactly what the books turns out to be. He also calls the book. ‘a personal journey of my coming-of-age as an oncologist’.

There are two main characters in the ‘story’ of cancer – Sidney Farber, who is called the father of modern chemotherapy. His story, his perseverance, his determination is an amazing read. Mary Lasker features as the other strong character in the book, changing the way, America and the world viewed cancer. Her relentless campaigning brought to the fore, the need for cancer research, and made it a battle for the whole nation, rather than a battle of a few doctors and patients. The book made makes one understand what actually went on for all these years in the battle against cancer, one of the biggest killers of our time.

The historical journey is fascinating to read. One of the first likely reports of cancer is Alossa, a Persian Queen who possibly had breast cancer, and was convinced by her slave to cut off her breast to cure her. Apparently even medieval surgeons practiced mastectomy using primitive surgical methods – there are accounts of such surgeries in the 1500s and 1600s. Fascinating, isn’t it? The way cancer was treated a couple of hundred years ago, was still scary, to say the least. From an age where bloodletting, purging, leaching were common practices, surgeons figured out that cutting out the cancerous body part helps. Radical surgery started with surgeons cutting as much as possible to kill the cancer. So much so that if the cancer did not kill the patient, the surgery might definitely do so. Most of the surgery was done with no anesthetic until 1884, when cocaine came into use as an anesthetic. Along with the history of cancer, it also gives us a glimpse of medical practices over the years, and how dedicated medical professionals have worked to improve on what they know.

This book is as much about the patients as it is about the doctors. Reading about the patients makes you sad, and hopeful at the same time. And it also made my respect for oncologists go up a million times. Reading a book was enough to move me, they do this on a regular basis. Facing cancer, fighting it, and living it with their patients…

This was one of the toughest books to review. What to mention, and what not to? It is such a wonderful book, that I can’t stop talking about it. I really don’t think I can do justice to this book review. If you enjoy reading books of this sort, please, please don’t miss it, it is a must read.

The Doctor will see you now by Max Pemberton

I picked up this book reading the blurb.

After a year on the streets treating outreach patients, Max Pemberton is back in the relative comfort of hospital. This time running between elderly care and dementia clinic to A&E and outpatients. No longer inexperienced(Max and his doctor friends can now tell when someone is actually dead, they are on the front line of patient care for better or worse.

One of the non-fiction books that actually touched my heart, made me feel glad that there are doctors out there that care, not that one really doubts that, but sometimes it gets easy to wonder.

Max Pemberton is a junior doctor with the NHS. He has just started work at the hospital after a year treating outreach patients. He says that ‘Within twenty four hours I had gone from a hanging around street corners, wearing jeans and a t-shirt an bribing patients so I could check their blood pressure, to being a proper, tie wearing, stethoscope waving medic.’

He works with the A&E as well as at the dementia clinic and elderly care. He talks about how almost all doctors of other specialties can claim to have gotten their patients to recover, but someone working with the elderly and dementia, could probably never get to say that. The difficulties that both patients, care homes and doctors face in elderly care makes a heart-rending read. Especially impressive is the ways that nurses and carers find to work around difficult patients who have lost their memories, and try to live their lives with scraps of what they remember from their previous lives. Elderly patients who are themselves carers of older partners, and more worried about their partners than themselves, when they get admitted into a hospital for something like a heart attack. Some instances bring a smile to our faces, while some are heart-breaking.

Along with his professional life, he also touches upon the personal lives of himself and his friends. The choices they make, and how life is never what it seems to be. How the most unlikely people turn up surprises of the most pleasant sort. It gives a real insight into the lives of medical professionals who battle with so many different things while providing us with healthcare of all sorts. Sometimes A&E staff is even forced to call upon firefighters to help, not once but twice. It gives a real insight into the NHS, the challenges and the opportunities that they face. Of how some doctors and medical professionals go that extra mile when it comes to patient care.

Written with self deprecating humour, his deep dedication to his job, and his patients comes through in every page of this book. You reach the end of the book, hoping that it would go on and on. I haven’t read his previous books, but can’t wait to read them now. I wouldn’t miss them for the world. One of the best books I have read recently. I would give it a 4.5/5.