health

THANKFUL, GRATEFUL, BLESSED

Posted on by vlaw759

Pretty much everyone appreciates what’s good in their lives during Thanksgiving. But if you know what’s good for you, you’ll make it a daily activity!

Benefits of Gratitude

Practicing gratitude can have many benefits. From sources across the web, these benefits include:

Mentally Grateful

—Improved mood: Gratitude can make people feel happier and more content. Writing a gratitude letter and counting blessings “were associated with substantial improvements in optimism” (Huffman, Dubois, Healy, Boehm, Kashdan, Celano, Denninger, & Lyubomirsky, 2014).

—Improved relationships: Expressing gratitude can help build and maintain social bonds.

—Reduced anxiety and depression: Gratitude buffers people from stress and depression (Wood, Maltby, Gillett, Linley, & Joseph, 2008). Writing gratitude letters leads to better mental health in adult populations seeking psychotherapy (Wong, Owen, Brown, Mcinnis, Toth, & Gilman, 2016).

—Gratitude may enhance peace of mind, reduce rumination, and have a negative effect on depressive symptoms (Liang, Chen, Li, Wu, Wang, Zheng, & Zeng, 2018).

—Increased productivity: Gratitude can increase productivity by activating the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for critical thinking and rational thought processes.

—Strengthened self-worth.

—Optimism: Positive reframing underlies the relationship between trait gratitude and a sense of coherence. A sense of coherence is how confident a person feels about potential life outcomes. It is the degree to which a person feels optimistic and in control of future events (Lambert, Graham, Fincham, & Stillman, 2009).

—Reduced stress: Gratitude can help calm the nervous system and reduce stress. (UCLA HealthMar 22, 2023)

Physically Grateful

from The Greater Good Science Center

— Every time a person expresses or receives gratitude, dopamine releases in the brain, thus making a connection between the behavior and feeling good. The more a person practices gratitude, the more often dopamine releases.

—Better sleep: People who practice gratitude tend to sleep better and longer.

—Better physical health: People who practice gratitude report better physical health and are more likely to seek help for physical concerns. Patients who expressed optimism/gratitude two weeks after an acute coronary event had healthier hearts (Huffman, Beale, Beach, Celano, Belcher, Moore, Suarez, Gandhi, Motiwala, Gaggin, & Januzzi 2015).

—Reduced risk of disease by reducing inflammation at the cellular level.

—Reduced difficulties with chronic pain.

—Increased blood flow to the hypothalamus, which controls stress and sleep.

— Gratitude and spiritual wellbeing are related to positive affect, sleep quality, energy, self-efficacy, and lower cellular inflammation (Mills, Redwine, Wilson, Pung, Chinh, Greenberg, Lunde, Maisel, & Raisinghani, 2015).

The Science of Being Grateful

The Greater Good Science Center offers a plethora of information on this subject. In a paper titled, “The Science of Gratitude” (2018), they outline several benefits to gratitude practice.

Individual Gratitude

  • More satisfaction with life
  • Increased happiness and positive mood
  • Less materialistic
  • Less likely to experience burnout
  • Better physical health
  • Better sleep
  • Less fatigue
  • Lower levels of cellular inflammation
  • Greater resiliency
  • Encourages the development of patience, humility, and wisdom

Group Gratitude

  • Strengthens relationships
  • Increases prosocial behaviors
  • May help employees’ effectiveness
  • May increase job satisfaction

Research Into Gratitude

Emmons & Mishra (2011) concluded that there is “considerable evidence that gratitude builds social resources by strengthening relationships and promoting prosocial actions.”

Wong and Brown (2017) determined that gratitude does four things:

  • Gratitude disconnects us from toxic, negative emotions and the ruminating that often accompanies them. Writing a letter “shifts our attention” so that our focus is on positive emotions.
  • Expressing gratitude helps us even if we don’t explicitly share it with someone. We’re happier and more satisfied with life because we “said it to ourselves.”
  • The positive effects of gratitude writing compound like interest. You might not notice the benefit of a daily or weekly practice, but after several weeks and months, you will.
  • A gratitude practice trains the brain to be more in tune with experiencing gratitude — a positive plus a positive, equaling more positives.

“In the past, I always thought of gratitude as a spontaneous response to the awareness of gifts received, but now I realize that gratitude can also be lived as a discipline. The discipline of gratitude is the explicit effort to acknowledge that all I am and have is given to me as a gift of love, a gift to be celebrated with joy.”

Henri J. M. Nouwen (1932-1996)
from Return of the Prodigal Son

Bartlett & DeSteno (2006) published research about gratefulness and helping behavior:

  • Gratitude facilitates helping behavior,
  • Grateful people help the people who helped them (benefactors) and strangers similarly, and
  • Reminding people who helped them (a benefactor) still increased helping behavior exhibited toward strangers. The reciprocity norm wasn’t a factor.

Dickens and DeSteno (2018) found an association between self-control (patience) and gratitude. Grateful people delay future rewards to a higher degree than ungrateful people, positively affecting one’s finances. Increasing levels of gratitude could also help people positively affect health-related behaviors.

Robert Emmons (2010), a preeminent scholar in this field, makes the argument that gratitude allows a person to do several things:

  • Celebrate the present
  • Block toxic emotions (envy, resentment, regret, depression)
  • Be more stress-resilient
  • Strengthen social ties and self-worth

Practice Being Grateful

These suggestions at Positive Psychology were adapted from Sansone & Sansone (2010) and Emmons (2010) and are easy to do daily or weekly.

  1. Journal about things, people, or situations for which you are grateful. Consider including negative situations like avoiding an accident, for instance.
  2. Think about someone for whom you are grateful.
  3. Write a gratitude letter to someone for whom you are thankful. Consider sending it or giving it to them in person.
  4. Meditate on gratitude (present moment awareness).
  5. Do the “Count Your Blessings” exercise (at the end of the day, write down three things for which you were grateful).
  6. Practice saying “thank you” in a real and meaningful way. Be specific. For example, “Thank you for taking the time to read this article and leave a comment. I enjoy reading your contributions because they broaden my understanding of this subject.”
  7. Write thank you notes. Some might say this is a lost art. Challenge yourself to write one hand-written note every week for one month.
  8. If religious, pray about your gratitude or use specific prayers of gratitude. Interfaith Worker Justice offers Muslim, Jewish, and Christian examples. Secular Seasons has several graces and invocations. You also can find a collection of secular gratitude approaches on BE. Orlando Humanist Fellowship.
  9. Recall a negative event. Doing this helps you appreciate your current situation.
  10. Be mindful of your five senses. How does each enhance your life?
  11. Create visual reminders to practice gratitude. Sticky notes, notifications, and people are great for this.
  12. Focus on the good that others have done on your behalf.
  13. Actions lead to gratitude. Smile, say thank you, and write gratitude letters.
  14. Be a grateful gazer. Be on the lookout for opportunities to feel grateful.
  15. Give something up. We tend to adapt to newness; sometimes it’s a good idea to give something up so that we can increase our appreciation of it.
  16. Think about what your life would be like if a specific positive event [hadn’t] happened. Write all the decisions and events that would have been different in your life. For instance, what if you didn’t meet your spouse? What if you didn’t get the dream job you have now? What if you hadn’t stopped a particular bad habit?
There’s always something to be grateful for!

Lack of Gratitude

Unfortunately, not everyone eagerly jumps onto the gratitude bandwagon. Emmons (2013) offers the following characteristics of ingratitude:

  • Excessive sense of self-importance
  • Arrogance
  • Vanity
  • Unquenchable need for admiration and approval
  • Sense of entitlement

Thomas Gilovich (2017) describes ingratitude as the result of “adaptation, dwelling on negatives, and skewed perceptions of hardships.” In Enemies of Gratitude, Gilovich explains how and why these three experiences interfere with one’s ability to express gratitude.

Appreciating the positives in one’s life making life better seems a little woo-woo, not to mention circular. But there’s a ton of research indicating that it works. And it’s a small, no-cost investment with potentially great rewards.

Bottom Line: Go for grateful!

FAT SHAMING: WORSE THAN JUST RUDE

Posted on by vlaw759

According to Harvard University School of Public Health, 33% of adults in the U.S. are overweight and 36% are ob⁶ese. Although percentages vary, several sources claim two thirds of American adults are overweight or obese.

With these numbers, one might expect a certain amount of heft to be perceived as acceptable, perhaps even desirable. But not so. Instead, in the United States, labels like fupa, lard, chunker, fatso, and jelly belly are slapped on. And how is this for humor? A collective noun for a group of overweight/obese people: A blubber of fat lads.

Even people who are trying to be polite or helpful say things that sting:

“But you have such great hair!”
  • It’s easy to lose weight …
  • You have such a pretty face …
  • You’d be so pretty if you lost weight …
  • I don’t see you as fat …
  • You look great! …
  • I’m so fat (when the speaker isn’t) …
  • It’s not like you’re obese …
  • That (food) looks healthy …
  • I’ve always wanted a bum like yours! …

Where Did the Body Mass Index Come From?

Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet, the man responsible for the obesity epidemic (in a way).

Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet, a Belgian mathemetician, developed Quetelet’s Index (later called the Body Mass Index or BMI) in the 1842 as a method of determining the average measurements of French and Scottish men. Quetelet prized homogeneity and thought that the ideal person should be as close to the center of the statistical bell curve as possible. At the time of its creation, Quetelet was very clear that “Quetelet’s Index” was useful solely as a means of predicting the average body size of a population, not to measure or predict anything for an individual, including health.

In 1867, Mutual Life Insurance of New York started using an adaptation of Quetelet’s BMI tables to determine how much to charge policy holders. Within a few years, every insurance company in the market was using different BMI tables with wildly varying numbers to define “healthy” weights, which they then used to set prices for clients.

Even when Ancel Keyes adapted Quetelet’s original findings as a way for doctors to use during medical consultations, he admitted that the BMI was only accurate as measure of obesity about half the time. He also included data only from men, almost entirely white men from relatively wealthy countries.

These early limitations of the BMI calculator continue to cause serious challenges for those trying to use it as a diagnostic tool. Women’s bodies store fat differently than men’s bodies. The cut-offs for defining someone as overweight or obese vary widely among ethnic groups. Scientists created the BMI for children by simply extending downward the existing trend lines for small adults, which makes the data for children particularly unreliable. Older adults have different metabolic needs and may benefit from having a higher BMI altogether.

In 1995, the World Health Organization change the definitions of overweight and obese according to BMI. The American National Insitute of Health (NIH) adopted those standards in 1998; overnight, millions of people became overweight or obese without gaining a pound. This marked the start of the “obesity epidemic” and the “war on obesity” (which has not really had any effect on actual health.)

Obesity Today

“It’s not fat. It’s floof!”

Today, the NIH classifies about 1 in 11 adults (9.2%) as having severe obesity.

As a rule of thumb, you are likely morbidly obese if you are more than 100 lbs. over your ideal body weight or have a BMI of over 40.

Women had a higher prevalence of severe obesity (11.5%) than men (6.9%). The prevalence was highest among adults aged 40–59 (11.5%), followed by adults aged 20–39 (9.1%), and adults aged 60 and over (5.8%).

Other obesity data reflect much of the data on other health issues.

Recent national data show that 54.8 percent of Black women and 50.6 percent of Hispanic women are obese compared to 38.0 percent of White women. Rates of obesity are also higher for Hispanic men, in the South and Midwest, in nonmetropolitan counties, and tend to increase with age. However, as discussed above, inherent problems in calculating BMI may misrepresent actual health of people in these populations.

Who Is Fat? Who Is Obese?

Kimberly Truesdale and June Stevens found that perception of one’s own weight may be skewed. Surprisingly, to me, only 22.2% of obese women and 6.7% of obese men correctly classified themselves as obese.

How can this be? Fat people have all kinds of euphemisms for fat. (Curvy, plump, voluptuous, plus-size, zaftig, heavyset, Rubenesque, queen-size, large, thick, plush, stout, hefty, buxom, portly, ample-bodied, curvaceous, puffy, fluffy, etc.)

In the Media

As I reported in an earlier blog (September, 2020) Greenberg et al. reported on their findings of television actors’ BMI after analyzing 5 episodes of the top 10 prime time shows.

“The ears add ten pounds.”
  • In comparing television actors’ BMI to that of the American public, they found that only 25 percent of men on television were overweight or obese, compared to almost 60 percent of American men.
  • Almost 90 percent of women on TV were at or below normal weight, compared to less than 50 percent of American women.

Popular television shows that include people who are obese portray them as comedic, lonely, or freaks.  Rarely if ever are they romantic leads, successful lawyers or doctors, or action stars.

In addition, shows like The Biggest Loser promote the perception that obesity is caused by individual failure rather than a mixture of individual, environmental, and genetic sources.

Weight and Mental Health

“Do these feathers make my bum look big?”

Defensive self-labeling aside, the results of fat shaming are apparent in many correlates of mental health. Societal stigmas and biases mean that carrying extra weight is hard on one’s mental health.

Late-onset or chronic overweight/obesity predicted low general, social, and academic/school-related self-esteem.

Socially competent people using better strategies for solving interpersonal problems are more readily accepted by peers and valued by adults. Obese individuals, especially teenagers, have deficits in several social skills, which lead to damage to relationships, lower self-esteem and devaluation by social agents.

Children with lower social skills are also at a greater risk of becoming overweight or obese.

Many individuals who are obese also struggle with issues related to their mood, self-esteem, quality of life, and body image. This emotional distress likely plays a role in treatment seeking but also can impact successful treatment.

Weight Stigma

“Anti-fat bias kind of turns up the volume on existing systems of oppression,” says Aubrey Gordon, author of You Just Need to Lose Weight” and 19 Other Myths About Fat People.

“Hibernating isn’t easy!”

Obesity is associated with a higher risk of having certain mental health disorders, including anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, and eating disorders. Often, this relationship is due to the effects of weight discrimination.

People with a weight problem are more likely to feel alone and describe themselves as lonely. They may feel they might not ever meet the ‘right person’, feel uncomfortable with intimacy, feel they are being judged for their weight, and just want to hide sometimes.

Obesity contributes to negative mental health and poor psychological well-being. Society also highly stigmatizes obesity, which negatively affects social and relational health, as well as inhibiting communication about the topic.

Medical professionals are often guilty of fat-shaming. Patients seeking treatment for problems that have nothing to do with size are instead lectured about why they need to lose weight. As Aubrey Gordon says, “It is one of the great fears of my life, that I will die of a totally treatable or preventable thing because my doctor can’t conceive of me having any other health problem than just being a fat person. That is a fear that follows me every time I go into a doctor’s office.”

“Just getting ready for winter.”

The vast majority of people who are overweight or obese according to BMI also have some form of eating disorder, according to Dr. Erin Harrop at Denver University. However, because these patients don’t fit the common perception of looking dangerously thin, the medical establishment classifies thesm as having “atypical anorexia.” This distinction makes it much more difficult to receive an accurate diagnosis. Not only are doctors more reluctant to treat overweight patients with disordered eating, insurance companies are reluctant to cover those treatments.

The social and emotional effects of obesity include discrimination, lower wages, lower quality of life and a likely susceptibility to depression.

To be clear, the mental health issues that are correlated with being overweight or obese are caused by our fat-shaming culture. In societies where people value weight, these stigmas are not prevalent.

Does Personality Cause Obesity?

Who are these overweight and obese people?

In analyses of separate personality traits, openness and conscientiousness were significantly associated with obesity in men, and only agreeableness was associated with obesity in women.

“It’s just feathers. I’m cold!”

Introverts are more likely to be at a healthy weight. They have lower rates of obesity. In one study of nearly 2,000 people over a span of 50 years, extroverts were heavier than introverts, with more body fat, larger waists, and bigger hips.

The BIH has found positive associations between obesity and the personality traits neuroticism (OR: 1.02) and extraversion (OR: 1.01), and negative associations between obesity and openness to experience (OR: 0.97) and agreeableness (OR: 0.98). (Recall, a positive association means as one goes up, so does the other; a negative association means as one goes up, the other goes down.)

“It’s water weight!”

Although there is no single personality type characteristic of the morbidly obese, they differ from the general population as their self-esteem and impulse control is lower. They have passive dependent and passive aggressive personality traits, as well as a trend for somatization and problem denial.

Over-eating may be the result of self-sabotage. A person gets into a cycle of low self-worth and shame, using food to soothe. Obesity can also be seen as a way of showing the world ‘I am worth nothing, stay away, because I am bad.’

Researchers have found four characteristics that typify the ”overweight personality.” You may have low self-esteem, poor self-control (or even eat compulsively), experience mood swings, or be prone to depression and anxiety.

Physical Causes of Obesity

Genes contribute to the causes of obesity in many ways, by affecting appetite, satiety (the sense of fullness), metabolism, food cravings, body-fat distribution, and the tendency to use eating as a way to cope with stress. Some researchers believe they may have identified “missing” genes that potentially contribute to obesity.

It’s important to remember that obesity is a disease, and we shouldn’t blame individuals for it because the causes are not always something they can control. In other words, it’s not your fault if you are obese.

Obese and Healthy

Obesity is definitely a physical health hazard, but poor health is not necessarily inevitable. In a database at McGill University, about 15% or slightly over half a million people were categorized as being obese and metabolically healthy.

If a person is 300 pounds and does not have any other diseases or health complications, then that person is considered healthy. However, the chances of staying healthy with 300 pounds weight are low. Around 99% of individuals weighing this much suffer from several other health complications.

“There is a lot of data that says that fat people generally and fat women in particular postpone care because they know that they are going to be overtly, directly judged by their health care providers and they know that they will get substandard care because of that judgement.”

Aubrey Gordon

Essentially, people with obesity can still be healthy. However, what a McGill University study, and prior research, shows is that obesity even on its own carries a certain cardiovascular risk even in metabolically healthy individuals.

Some People Do Manage to Lose Weight

The annual probability of achieving normal body weight was 1 in 210 for men and 1 in 124 for women with simple obesity. The probability declined with increasing BMI category. In patients with morbid obesity, the annual probability of achieving normal weight was 1 in 1290 for men and 1 in 677 for women.

Good news! Children who successfully reduced weight may have equal levels of self-esteem or even better social self-esteem than those being always underweight/normal weight.

The disease of obesity, no matter what it means for your physical body, is not your whole self or your whole life. Obesity does not define you as a person.

Bottom Line: For many people, too much weight is a fact of life. Be aware of the possible (probable) effects of fat shaming on your mental wellbeing!

BETTER KNOW YOUR CHARACTER: FITNESS

Posted on by vlaw759

Some people, I’ve heard, actually like to exercise. These people are probably playing games such as tennis, golf, basketball, etc. Maybe biking, hiking or kayaking. There are also people who enjoy lifting weights just for the sake of lifting weights. Is your character one of these? If so, how good is s/he?  And when did s/he take up the game?

Then there are activities that some people do for fun and others do as a means to a specific end. In this category I’d put swimming or water aerobics for a bad back, running to relieve stress, boxing as a form of anger management, yoga to relax. Some people bike or walk for fun; for many others, walking and biking is a primary mode of transportation.

This group also would include those people who work out primarily to get or keep a body beautiful.

For most of human history, the vast majority of people have gotten plenty of exercise just trying to stay alive. Farming, hunting, and gathering food require activities people pay big money to recreate in a gym today. Building defense structures, making tools and weapons, chopping wood, washing clothes, and travelling are all much more physically demanding without machinery to help. In almost every part of the world, there are still cultures today that rely primarily on human or animal labor rather than technology.

Some people exercise simply because they have to. Physical therapy can be done to prevent a future injury as well as to treat an existing injury. Martial arts practice can people alive in crisis situations, but regular practice has also been helpful in the treatment of mental illness. A home might only be reachable by strenuous hiking; a job might require frequent lifting and carrying.

At the other end of the spectrum are people whose preferred activity is reading novels while snarfing chocolates or swigging scotch. Or maybe that’s watching TV while munching chips and chugging beer. Sound like any characters you know?

But even these people have probably heard “sitting is the new smoking” when it comes to being detrimental to one’s health. This group of people will find the easiest or least painful way to stay minimally fit.

  • Go to the gym with a friend and enjoy the socialization
  • Join an exercise class that’s nearby
  • Hire a personal trainer
  • Get up for jumping jacks during commercial breaks
  • Lifting the coffee mug to take a sip counts as doing bicep curls

For some, getting dressed and going somewhere is too much effort—not to mention those who don’t want anyone to see them doing whatever it is they are doing.  And in these times of COVID-19, many people don’t want the exposure. These people are likely to choose a stay-at-home option.

  • Buy equipment to use at home:
    • Balance ball
    • Exercise bands
    • Graduated weights, hand-held or strapped to wrists/ankles
    • Heavy-duty weights, barbels, etc.
    • A multi-purpose machine such as Bowflex
    • NordicTrack or similar treadmill
    • Rowing machine
    • A compact elliptical trainer
    • Stationary bicycle
    • Some version of a vibrating plate

Note: Jugs of water, broken swivel chairs, flat-surface furniture, paper plates, and compliant dogs or small children can provide the same benefits as all of these expensive gadgets for almost no money at all!

3.1 How likely is your character to show up at the gym wearing only a towel?

Bottom line for writers: Know your characters’ fitness habits, particularly main characters. There are three components to a person’s/character’s exercise decisions

  1. How does s/he feel about fitness/exercise?
  2. What does s/he think about fitness/exercise?
  3. What does s/he actually do?
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, The Notorious RBG
1933-2020 R.I.P.

Tai Chi

Posted on by vlaw759
tai chi
Come on down! I’m going to be there, performing tai chi moves and qigong breathing with other members from my class. Participants and watchers are welcome. There’s to be a lion dance in the opening.

 

I got involved in tai chi because I wanted to try something new and my sister-in-law had been practicing tai chi for years and telling me I should do the same. Now, this sister-in-law tends to think that everyone should think and do what she does—for she does things for good reasons. This is pretty much the first time I’ve succumbed.

 

So, tai chi is a Chinese martial art. (For alternative spellings of tai chi, go online.) Tai chi is practiced both for its defensive training and its health benefits.

 

tai chi
Tai chi, rooted in Taoist and Confucian Chinese philosophy, has been found to be beneficial for meditative movement and for general health. Focusing solely on the movements of the form bring mental calm and clarity, good for general health and stress management. The three main aspects are health, meditation, and the martial arts.

 

tai chi
My tai chi teacher explains the martial arts application, but the focus is on slow movement, meditation, and health. We also practice qigong breathing. Seated tai chi moves are suitable for older people. Research shows that seated tai chi can make big improvements to a person’s physical and mental well being, including improvements in balance, blood pressure, flexibility, muscle strength, peak oxygen intake, and and body fat percentages.

 

tai chi
Which brings us back to World Tai Chi and Qigong Day. It is the last Saturday in April, annually. At 10:00 a.m. local time, people participate alone or in groups. The idea is that the wave of energy and goodwill will circle the globe, starting in the earliest time zones of Samoa and then traveling around the world until it ends with events in the last time zones of Hawaii, almost an entire day.

 

One of the stated goals of the day is to provide a global vision of cooperation for health and healing purposes across geopolitical boundaries, and also an appeal to people worldwide to embrace wisdom from all the cultures of the world. Who can argue with that?

 

tai chi
One breath… One world.

Better Late than Never!

Posted on by vlaw759
During a recent phone conversation with my youngest daughter, she talked about her current reading, The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee.

She said it is so good that she stays up late to read, even on work nights. She talked about the book so enthusiastically that I downloaded it to my Kindle even as we spoke and started reading it that evening. And she’s right: it’s as compelling as any novel!

 

This is not a new book. It was published in 2010 and quickly became a NYT bestseller. It won the Pulitzer Prize. It became a PBS documentary by Ken Burns.

 

emperor all maladies ken burns barak goodman
[Source: Nancy’s Point]
With all of that, still I passed it by. I don’t regularly scarf up bestsellers and prize winning books, choosing things more off-the-beaten-track. And though I am an avid watcher of PBS, somehow this documentary didn’t catch my eye. (I didn’t watch the one on baseball, either. Perhaps I should.) Apparently  I needed to hear a personal endorsement! If you need a personal endorsement to look at this book, here’s mine.
 
The writing is excellent—vivd and compelling. The information is fascinating: cancer can be tracked back at least five thousand years; tumors have been found in Egyptian mummies; for a period of time, tumors were removed with ever increasing amounts of surrounding body mass on the belief that more was better; and sometimes progress has been hampered by politics and infighting. The science and technical information is presented in understandable language. The historical bits are sandwiched with modern day efforts and current patients. As a “biography” of a disease, it is incredibly personal.

 

siddhartha mukherjee
[Source: Twitter]
Siddhartha Mukherjee is an oncologist, researcher, and science writer. He’s Indian-American, born in New Delhi, educated at Stanford (BS), Magdalen College, Oxford (DPhil), and Harvard (MD). He published this book at age 37! No doubt we can anticipate much more from him.

 

More than twenty years ago, Hiram College was at the the forefront of what became a national move toward health humanities programs. They now offer a major in biomedical humanities—but that’s a whole other topic. I mention it because Hiram is where I first recognized what fine writers healthcare professionals can be! So in that vein, I will just mention Cutting For Stone, published in 2009.
 
cutting for stone abraham verghese
[Source: Amazon]
This novel was written by Ethiopian-born medical doctor Abraham Verghesse. The story is told by the protagonist and until I finished the book, I thought it was memoir! That’s how real it seems. I couldn’t put it down. So here’s another old book to pick up.
 
BOTTOM LINE: Check out books written by physicians. And don’t limit yourself to the most recent. They go way beyond the Physician’s Desk Reference. You will be amazed.