a history of the present illness - louise aronson (2013)

vignettes in the most versatile use of the term.

compelling tales of everyday events patients challenges and stuff that every physician can relate to starring a diverse array of players that is as far removed from male white 'murrica as you wish and linked together tenuously and unexpectedly by the most tangential neighborly connections.

the delightful sub-plot of an entire smorgasbord of writing styles is the cream on the icing on the cake. 

maybe you should talk to someone - lori gottlieb (2019)

fascinating and compelling and eye-opening and gorgeous.

read this to get a digestibly sweeping overview of what psychotherapy is entails encompasses utilizes and is underpinned by. that's the fascinating part.

read this to follow five story threads as they weave their differently complicated patterns to satisfyingly rich cadences, mixed metaphors be damned. and as Gottlieb explores themes as a practitioner that practitioners do not often mention in public. what do you do when you are just so irritated by the patient? are you ever attracted to a patient? what happens after you google your patient? that's the compelling bit.

read this for eye-opening pearls:

• between stimulus and response there is a space. in that space is our power to choose our response... as she quotes Frankl 
• being liked, and loved, for my neshama, which is my spirit or my soul 
• what not to do say to a dying person: be strong, you can beat this! have you asked for a second opinion? what to say: i'm so sorry 
• there is no hierarchy to pain. suffering is not a competition

this is absolutely gorgeous.