Books for doctorlings

[liv]

So the medical school is having a drive to encourage students to engage more with arts and humanities, so we don't end up with a lot of future doctors who haven't read a novel since they finished GCSE English. And they're asking for suggestions for books worth recommending to the students.

This seems like an interesting question, so I'm throwing it open to you: if you could recommend one book you'd like your doctor to have read, what would it be? They specify that it doesn't have to be about a directly medical topic, but just something that could help very science-specialized people to understand more about being human. Non-fiction is ok but they want literary non-fiction, things like biographies, rather than textbooks.

My thinking about this is that there's no point recommending the obvious nineteenth century Dead White Men classics, because even if the students were funnelled out of anything to do with literature in their mid teens they're all high achievers, they've almost certainly all "done" Dickens for GCSE and got As for their essays. And even the ones who don't read have read The man who mistook his wife for a hat because various how to get into medical school guides push it as something to mention at interview.

So, suggestions?

Comments

[redbird]

I think this may be another case of self-selecting subgroups: doctors and scientists who read for pleasure/outside their specialities are likely to spend time with each other, and to get to know people other than doctors and scientists who also read for pleasure. Doctors who don't may be socialising mostly with other doctors, or with doctors who share their recreational interests, whether it's playing in a string quartet or watching cricket. The person who knows a doctor from a string quartet is likely to think "of course doctors care about music."