The Story of V

Finished July 23

The Story of V: Opening Pandora's Box by Catherine Blackledge

This is an in-depth look into female sexual organs, sexuality, reproduction, and sexual pleasure. The author has a PhD in science, and worked in science and medical journalism. As one would guess from the title of this book, the central subject of the book is the vagina, but it goes beyond that.

She describes how female genitals have been studied over history and talks about how knowledge has ebbed and flowed. Some things were discovered, denied, and then discovered anew. Sometimes these complex organs were simplified or misrepresented. 

She also references female sexuality across numerous species, including insects, birds, and mammals, and talks about how, in many cases, it is the female that controls the sexual encounter and whether fertilization occurs. 

She also talks about how our sexuality goes beyond our genitals involving other areas of our body, and how scent is a big influence on our sexual pleasure. One thing I found interesting in the connection between the nose and sexual arousal was that, for many people, nasal stuffiness or congestion can occur in conjunction with sexual stimulation or orgasm. 

She talks about the structure of the different parts of our genitals, and when we learned about different aspects of them, linking research to knowledge and where we still have things to learn. 

This is an important book, particularly for women, to better understand their own bodies and responses. I read it slowly over many months, taking time to absorb the different learnings throughout. 

Life on the Ground Floor

Finished May 29
Life on the Ground Floor: Letters from the Edge of Emergency Medicine by James Maskalyk

This memoir is organized in a very interesting way. Maskalyk goes alphabetically through the letters of the alphabet, with each chapter on a topic starting with a letter. There are a couple of chapters where he combines two letters for his topic. So the subtitle doesn't mean what I thought it did, which was letters from one person to another.
Maskalyk works in emergency medicine at St. Mike's hospital in Toronto, and sometimes on the trauma team. He also teaches emergency medicine at the University of Toronto, and he works as an advisor, teacher, and consultant in emergency medicine in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
This memoir of his work in this field moves between his work at St. Mike's, his work in Ethiopia, and his offtime with his grandfather in northern Alberta, near where a lot of my family came from and some still live.
The interesting comparison of a rural area of Canada, with a very urban area of Canada, and an urban area of Africa is one that emphasizes both things in common and differences. The hospital he works at in Ethiopia struggles to get the staff, equipment, and drugs necessary to treat patients properly. The patients struggle to pay for what they need. The families are a big part of the caregiving due to staff shortages, and lack of experience. In Canada, St. Mike's is right downtown, with all the difficult situations that that environment brings: drugs, violence, homeless, and mental illness. But they have staff that are well-trained, the most up-to-date equipment, and easy access to the necessary medications.
With his grandfather in rural Alberta, medical care is available, but not necessarily coordinated. At one point, he reviews his grandfather's medications and eliminates ones that don't give enough benefit for the side effects, or aren't needed. At another he accompanies him to the loca doctor, and explains his grandfather's condition and the risks he faces, becoming an advocate for the right treatment at the right time. I loved the closeness between these two men, and the way they dealt with real life issues.
Maskalyk is a man who cares deeply, who wants to make a difference in the world for the good, and who lives a life that sometimes is a lonely one.
Highly recommended.

A Dublin Student Doctor

Finished January 6
A Dublin Student Doctor by Patrick Taylor, read by John Keating
This is the third novel I've listened to in the Irish Country series. The others are An Irish Country Girl, an An Irish Country Doctor. There are others in the series I haven't read yet.
Patrick Taylor was born and grew up in Ireland and became a doctor there. He now lives in B.C.
This novel features Doctor Fingal O'Reilly. Dr. O'Reilly is driving home from the races in 1965 when he comes across an accident. One of his patients has crashed his motorcycle.
Dr. O'Reilly accompanies him in the ambulance to the hospital, and falls into reminiscences of his medical student days in Dublin. The novel becomes a tales of those days in the mid 1930s.
Dr. O'Reilly overcame his father's objections and other hardships to become a doctor. He studied at Trinity College and Sir Patrick Dun's Hospital. During those student days he made lifelong friends with 3 other medical students and romanced a nursing student, Kitty O'Hallorhan. The novel shows the extent of medical education at the time, the social situation in Dublin, and gives insight into the character of O'Reilly, who has been featured in the other novels in this series.
This novel is one where the characters are well-developed and the story of a life is shown deeply. A great read.

Great Canadian Fiction

Finished December 31
The Heart Specialist by Claire Holden Rothman
I got this book back in the summer for a birthday gift and now wonder why I never picked it up earlier (I know, I was reading the library books I had to return first!). It is wonderful. Inspired by one of Canada's first woman doctors, Dr. Maude Abbott, and with each section introduced by a quote from her, it takes you completely into another world. We follow the life of Agnes White, from her childhood to after the first World War. Agnes exhibits her love of science at a young age and fights doggedly to become a medical doctor. She is helped along by her governess and mentor, who steps into her life just when she needs her the most. Agnes continuously longs for and emulates her father who walked out of her life when she was only five, and we see how this loss deeply affects her the rest of her life.
This amazing novel will be one of my top reads of the year.

Memoir

Finished September 19
The Doctor Will Not See You Now: The Autobiography of a Blind Physician by Jane Poulson
This is the memoir of a woman who overcame obstacles in her life and used her experiences to improve the lives of others.
A Toronto native, Jane was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes as an adolescent. She studied hard at her favourite subject science and continued those studies at university. Persisting in her quest for an interesting and useful life, she applied to medical school and was accepted into McGill. She lost her vision in her last year of medical school at the age of 27, and with the support of friends and colleagues, did her internship despite her lack of sight. She found a niche in palliative medicine and soon became sought out for her insights into the field.
She moved back to Toronto to spend more time with her family and in her 40s was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. She also developed heart disease. While not actively practising following these health setbacks, she still did research and wrote, adding her own experience as a patient to the information she shared with her colleagues. Jane died at the age of 49.
This memoir shows her personal struggles, the friends and faith that helped her find her way, and the information she added to the knowledge in her field. An inspiring story.

Memoir

Finished July 14
Direct Red: a surgeon's view of her life-or-death profession by Gabriel Weston
This is not a memoir done in a chronological style. Weston uses a themed approach, with each chapter focusing on a particular aspect of her experience while training as a surgeon in Britain.
I found this to be extremely engaging and an approach that leads the reader into dipping in and out of the book in short sessions.
She speaks of her own learning experiences including when she felt she fell short and she also takes about more general experiences including her own view among her peers. This is a very open book offering insight into the experience of a surgeon and the issues they face. She speaks of the need to balance toughness with compassion and the importance of communication both between patient and doctor and among medical professionals. As a woman she also speaks to gender issues both good and bad.
I really liked this book and I understand she has a new book out soon that I will be looking for.

Epic Novel

Finished June 2
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese, read by Sunil Malhotta
This is a long novel (19 CDs in audio) but a gripping one. We are told the story of Marion and Shiva Stone, identical twins, conjoined at birth, whose mother died at their birth. The twins were unexpected to everyone else at the mission hospital in Ethiopia. Their mother, a nun from India, worked there assisting the surgeon, their father. He was so shocked and devasted by the incidents surrounding their birth that he ran away.
Taking us from the 1950's into the 21st century, this story follows Marion's life as he looks back on his parents lives, on the lives of his adopted parents, also doctors at the mission hospital, to his own childhood and youth growing up in Addis Ababa. Marion follows in his parents footsteps, becoming a surgeon himself, and events force him to flee Ethiopia during its civil war and take refuge in Kenya and then in the United States, where he continues his medical training.
The author is himself a doctor and this knowledge is evident in the text. While there is a lot of medical information, it never seemed anything but natural to me, a necessary part of the story.
The best thing about this novel to me was the sense of place that is made so clear of this small mission hospital in Addis Ababa. From the mangled name of the hospital (Missing Hospital) to the staff (the priest gatekeeper and the administrative Mother Superior to name just two) one is immersed in the surroundings of the young boys as they grow up in this wonderful atmosphere.
This novel just flows, and I was enchanted by the wonderful story as well as by the narrator's voice, perfectly suited for the tale. While a long novel, it never felt like too much, and though the story drew us backward and forward through the lives of various characters, it never jarred.
A wonderful book that I will recommend highly.

Another Medical Memoir

Finished February 3
Hot Lights, Cold Steel: Life, Death and Sleepless Nights in a Surgeon's First Years by Michael J. Collins
This is the second memoir of a doctor's residency that I've read lately, and I found it just as engaging as the first, although in many ways it is quite different. Collins was a orthopedic surgery resident at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. This memoir tells of his four years there. He talks about his relationship with other residents, his relationship with other hospital staff, the patient cases he dealt with, and his personal life. One thing that I found eye-opening was the very low pay the residents got, which made it necessary for Collins to moonlight at a nearby rural hospital and still watch his finances very carefully. This memoir is very open and discusses many issues that come up during the training of residents.

Interesting Memoir

Finished December 20
Another Day in the Frontal Lobe: a brain surgeon exposes life on the inside by Katrina Firlik
This was a very readable and entertaining memoir that kept me interested throughout. Firlik tells the story of her training to be a neurosurgeon (4 years of college, 4 years of medical school, 7 years of residency) with humour and insight. Her initial years of college were spent studying anthropology and that knowledge has given her a different outlook for some of her training experiences. She is open with her own feelings and experiences throughout, even to some of the things she regrets. Her discussions include the risk, the routine, the tools, and the emotions as well as a great deal of the actual learning. I learned more about the brain and the spine than I knew and found it all interesting. Dr. Firlik gives credit to her mentors, professors and fellow students as well and shows her dedication to the teamwork necessary to good medicine.
I highly recommend it.