Read any good books lately?

“To study the phenomenon of disease without books is to sail an uncharted sea, while to study books without patients is not to go to sea at all”

Sir William Osler

While emphasizing the place of books and experience with patients in medical education, it was not only medical texts that Osler felt students should read and know. He had a recommended list of bedside books for medical students (Table 1).

Table 1.

Osler’s bedside table Library for Medical Students
Old and New Testament The works of Shakespeare The works of Montaigne Plutarch’s Lives Meditations by Marcus Aurelius Breakfast Table Series by Oliver Wendell Holmes Discourses of Epictetus Religio Medici by Sir Thomas Brown Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes The works of Emerson

In some cases Osler, the most famous of McGill professors, was recommending a body of work rather than a book, and although he was not explicit in what we should take from these writings as future physicians, he clearly felt that these writings contained important teachings and knowledge that would make a student a better physician. Osler himself was a great bibliophile, and his writings are sprinkled with quotations and lessons from an amazingly wide range of classical, fictional and medical literature (1). He donated his great collection of medical and related works to McGill, which formed the basis of the Osler Library in the McIntyre Medical Sciences Building.

A current medical student would understandably regard many of the works on the list as outside their experience and would expect more familiar books on a modern list. If so, what books? What books would students now suggest for a modern list?

Updating Osler’s bedside library list has been attempted a number of times (2, 3, 4) and most recently by a group from the American Osler society (5). Dr. Francis Neelon, then President of the AOS, assisted by Dr. Robert Rakel and Dr. Herbert Swick, canvassed members to see if a new list could be developed. It proved a difficult challenge. The Society members were asked how many of Osler’s suggestions they had read, and then they were asked to make recommendations for a new list (5). There were 19 responses. Perhaps the nature of Society members, who have a high interest in history, literature and the humanities, and their devotion to Sir William Osler, accounts for the high response to the reading of Osler’s list (Shakespeare 95%; Old and New Testament 84%; Don Quixote 68%; Oliver Wendell Holmes 53%; Religio Medici 42%; Emerson 42%; Marcus Aurelius 37%; Plutarch’s Lives 32%; Montaigne 21%; Epictetus 0%).

More interesting is the list of 124 books put forward for a new list by the 19 respondents and some of those with multiple recommendations are appended (Table 2). Some from Osler’s original list were among those recommended by more than one person, with top of the list going to Shakespeare, the Old and New Testament, Don Quixote by Cervantes, and Religio Medici by Sir Thomas Browne. Others that were recommended more than once by Society members were various anthologies of poetry, The Doctor Stories by William Carlos Williams, the biography of the great physician, William Osler: a Life in Medicine by Michael Bliss, Life of Johnson by James Boswell, Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, Osler’s Collected Essays, Machiavelli’s The Prince, Will and Ariel Durant’s The Story of Civilization, and the historical works of Winston Churchill (Table 2).

Table 2.

Some suggestions from members of the American Osler Society (Neelon)

Shakespeare Old and New Testament Don Quixote by Cervantes Religio Medici by Sir Thomas Browne The Doctor Stories by William Carlos Williams William Osler: a Life in Medicine by Michael Bliss Life of Johnson by James Boswell Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl Collected Essays by Sir William Osler The Prince by Machiavelli The Story of Civilization by Will and Ariel Durant The historical works of Winston Churchill

Interesting as these books may be, they come from mostly senior and often retired physicians, and although I now am a member of this graying group, I suspect my generation may not be the best to suggest a bedside list for medical students. I wonder if the students themselves couldn’t create a relevant list that would resound with their peers.

In my experience, medical students prefer books written by physicians (6). Table 3 has a partial list of physician writers, and there are many other writers who write about medicine.

Table 3.

Some Physicians writers
Danny Abse
Harold Klawans
John Aiken
Michael LaCombe
Mary Aikenside
John Locke
Richard Asher
Saint Luke
Thomas Beddoes
Somerset Maugham
Robert Bridges
Sir Andrew Macphail
Mikhail Bulgakov
John MacCrae
Thomas Campion
Jonathan Miller
Anton Checkov
Silas Weir Mitchell
Clif Cleaveland
Axel Munthe
Robert Coles
Sir William Osler
Jack Coulehan
Wilder Penfield
Michael Crichton
Walker Percy
Erasmus Darwin
Francois Rabalais
Paul DeKruif
Peter Mark Roget
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Oliver Sacks
William Drummond
Richard Selzer
Macdonald Critchley
Frank Slaughter
Jacques Feron
Tobias Smollett
Sir Samuel Garth
John Stone
Oliver Gogarty
Lewis Thomas
Oliver Goldsmith
Abraham Verghese
Oliver Wendell Holmes
William Carlos Williams
Perri Klass
Thomas Young

Students today have more extensive and diverse backgrounds, education and experiences than ever before. It would be enlightening to see a list compiled by medical students. Would there be graphic novels, science fiction or fantasy, pop culture novels? Should the books be inspirational, empowering, educational or just interesting? Would there be podcasts, blogs, magazines? (My own list submitted to the AOS included the Times Literary Supplement and Literary Review which I find highly informative on many subjects and ideas).