Newport's Book List and Podcasts for Premeds 2022

To enhance your clinical experiences, conversations with physicians and volunteer work, you should browse through this list of books and pick a few to embrace in your time off.  It might just give you some food for thought as you sit down and write your personal statement or secondary essays.  Often, during a medical school interview, the evaluator will ask you to comment on a recent book you read. Perhaps this list will provide you with some inspiration.

Podcasts are perfect for that long walk to class or while you exercise. Enjoy!

Our Top BOok Picks

• The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee (2011) Winner of the Pulitzer Prize

• The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande (2011)

• When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi (2016) Good Reads Choice Awards 2016, Amazon Best Book Award 2016,  The New York Times Number One Bestseller, The Sunday Times Number One Best Seller, Shortlist for the Wellcome Book Prize 2017.

• Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder (2009)

• Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and Medicine by Damon Tweedy, MD (2015)

• What the Eyes Don’t See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance and Hope in an American City by Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha. This compelling story highlights the extraordinary work of Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha in highlighting the public health crisis of lead in the Flint, Michigan drinking water.

Podcasts for Premeds

• 10 Podcasts for Premeds

• Beyond the White Coat: Exploring the Future of Health Care Policy After COVID-19 (May 29, 2020)

• All Access: Med School Admissions Podcast produced by Case Western Reserve School of Medicine and hosted by Christian Essman. He interviews different medical school deans for 90min. Great info to write your secondaries and prepare for interviews. They have 56 podcasts so far. (One of Newport’s favorite podcasts!!)

• The Short Coat from the students at Iowa Carver College of Medicine

• Talking Admissions and Med Student Life by Dr. Benjamin Chan at the University of Utah

• Dr. Ryan Gray offers several different podcasts on the premed years, MCATs, boards and more.

• Dear Premed by Mary Tate, a fourth year medical student at Harvard Medical School

• Podcast: Racism Under the Microscope (new as of January 2021)

• Hidden Brain from NPR with Shankar Vedantam (One of Newport’s favorite podcasts!!)

• The Story of AIDS, a BBC production addressing the evolution of the AIDS crisis in South Africa. Learn the heroic role Doctor’s Without Borders played in advocating for access to life saving drugs. Now South Africa has the largest antiretroviral program in the world.

Recent Selection of Books (2017-2021)

• Attending: Medicine, Mindfulness, and Humanity by Ronald Epstein (2017)

• Ask Me About My Uterus by Abby Norman (2019)

• Being Mortal by Atul Gawande (2017)

• Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America's Most Storied Hospital by David Oshinsky (2017)

• The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister’s Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine by Lindsey Fitzharris, PhD (2017)

• Doing Harm: The Truth about How Bad Medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed, and Sick by Maya Dusenbery (2018)

• Chasing My Cure by David Fajgenbaum, MD (2019)

• Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth, PhD (2016)

• Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War by Mary Roach (2017)

• The Heart Healers: The Misfits, Mavericks, and Rebels Who Created the Greatest Medical Breakthrough of Our Lives by James Forrester, MD (2016)

• Heart: A History by Sandeep Jauhar (2018)

• How to Raise a Doctor by Dr. Dale Okorodudu (2018)

• The Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore (2018)

• RX: A Graphic Memoire by Rachel Lindsay (2018)

• In Shock: My Journey from Death to Recovery and the Redemptive Power of Hope by Rana Awdish, MD, FCCP (2018)

• Spirituality and Religion Within the Culture of Medicine: From Evidence to Practice by John R. Peteetan  and Michael J. Balboni (2017)

• What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear by Danielle Ofri (2017) 

• When We Do Harm: A Doctor Confronts Medical Error by Danielle Ofri (2021)

• When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi (2016) Good Reads Choice Awards 2016, Amazon Best Book Award 2016,  The New York Times Number One Bestseller, The Sunday Times Number One Bestseller, Shortlist for the Wellcome Book Prize 2017.

• When Death Becomes Life: Notes from a Transplant Surgeon by Joshua D. Mezrich, MD (2019)

• You Bet Your Life: From Blood Transfusions to Mass Vaccination, the Long and Risky History of Medical Innovation by Paul A Offit (2021)

Books by Jerome Groopman

• The Anatomy of Hope: How People Prevail in the Face of Illness by Jerome Groopman (2005)

• How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman (2008)

• Your Medical Mind: How to Decide What Is Right for You by Jerome Groopman and Pamela Hartzband (2012)

• The Measure of Our Days: A Spiritual Exploration of Illness by Jerome Groopman (1998)

Books by Atul Gawande

• Being Mortal by Atul Gawande (2017) A good book for aspiring veterinarians too.

• Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance by Atul Gawande (2008)

• Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande (Won National Book Award Finalist for Nonfiction in 2002).

• The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande (2011)

Classic Premed Reads

• A Not Entirely Benign Procedure: Four Years As A Medical Student by Perri Klass (1994)

• America’s Bitter Pill: Money, Politics, Backroom Deals, and the Fight to Fix Our Broken Healthcare System by Steve Brill (2015)

• The Anatomy of an Illness by Norman Cousins (2005)

• Black Man in a White Coat: A Doctor’s Reflections on Race and Medicine by Damon Tweedy, MD (2015)

• Blue Collar, Blue Scrubs: The Making of a Surgeon by Michael Collins (2010)

• Body of Work: Meditations on Mortality from the Human Anatomy Lab by Christine Montross (2008)

• Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan (2013)

• Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery by Henry Marsh (2016)

• Doctoring: The Nature of Primary Care Medicine by Eric Cassell (2002)

• The Doctor Stories by William Carlos Williams, MD (2012)

• The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee (2011) Winner of the Pulitzer Prize

• Everything I Learned in Medical School: Besides All the Book by Sujay Kansagra (2011)

• Final Exam: A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality by Pauline W. Chen (2008)

• First, Do No Harm: The Dramatic Story of Real Doctors and Patients Making Impossible Choices at a Big-City Hospital by Lisa Belkin (1994)

• Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story by Ben Carson (1996)

• The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John M. Barry (2005)

• Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth, PhD (2016)

• Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War by Mary Roach (2017)

• The Healthcare Handbook by Elisabeth Askin & Nathan Moore (2014) Important for students preparing for Interviews.

• Hot Lights, Cold Steel: Life, Death and Sleepless Nights in a Surgeon's First Years by Michael Collins (2006)

• The House of God: The Classic Novel of Life and Death in an American Hospital by Samuel Shem (1994)

• How We Die: Reflections of Life's Final Chapter by Sherwin B. Nuland (1995) National Book Award winner. 

• The Human Side of Medicine: Learning What It’s Like to Be a Patient and What It’s Like to Be a Physician by Laurence Savett, MD (2002)

• The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (2011)

• The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly by Matt McCarthy (2015)

• In Stitches by Anthony You (2012) 

• Intern: A Doctor's Initiation by Sandeep Jauhar (2009)

• The Intern Blues: The Timeless Classic About the Making of a Doctor by Robert Marion (2001)

• Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans by Harriet Washington (2008) 

• My Own Country: A Doctor's Story by Abraham Verghese (1995)

• On Doctoring: New, Revised and Expanded Third Edition by John Sloan and Richard Reynolds (2010)

• Racism, Health, and Post-Industrialism: A Theory of African-American Health by Clovis E. Semmes (1996)

• Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach (2004)

• Strong at the Broken Places: Voices of Illness, a Chorus of Hope by Richard Cohen (2009)

• The Tennis Partner by Abraham Verghese (1995)

• This Won't Hurt a Bit: (And Other White Lies): My Education in Medicine and Motherhood by Michelle Au (2011)

• This Side of Doctoring: Reflections from Women in Medicine by Chin, Eliza, ed. (2003)

• What Doctors Feel: How Emotions Affect the Practice of Medicine  by Danielle Ofri  (2014) 

• White Coat: Becoming A Doctor At Harvard Medical School 1st Edition by Ellen Rothman (2002)

• When the Air Hits Your Brain: Tales from Neurosurgery by Frank Vertosick (2008)

International, Intercultural Perspective & Global Health

• Adventures of a Female Medical Detective: In Pursuit of Smallpox and AIDS by Mary Guinan (2016)

• Caring for Patients from Different Cultures  by Geri-Ann Galanti  (2014)

• Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs by Michael T. Osterholm and Mark Olshaker (2017)

• Hot, Hungry Planet by Lisa Palmer (2017)

• Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World by Tracy Kidder (2009)

• Reimagining Global Health: An Introduction by Paul Farmer (2013)

• The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman (2012)

• The Latino Patient: A Cultural Guide for Health Care Providers by Nilda Chong (2002) 

• Caring for Patients from Different Cultures by Geri-Ann Galanti (2003)

• *Visit Global Health Now's Best Global Health Books of 2017 from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.*

Books on How to Apply to Medical School

• From the AAMC, 2021 Official Guide to Medical School Admissions: How to Prepare for and Apply to Medical School (PDF) FREE

• The Family Guide to Medical School Admissions by Janet Snoyer (2021)

• Case Studies in Medical School Admissions: A Resource for Admissions Committees, Premedical Advisors, and the Applicants they Guide by Sylvia Robertson (2019)

• Essays That Will Get You into Medical School (Essays That Will Get You Into... Series) by Chris Dowhan, Dan Kaufman, Adrienne Dowhan (2014) 

• Reichard-Brown, J. L., & Lam, C. (2022) wrote a chapter on writing personal statements in the following handbook. Writing a Personal Statement Gets Personal: Preparing Pre-Health Professions Students for the Process of Writing and Polishing Their Essays. In L. Schwartz, & R. Ganjoo (Ed.), Handbook of Research on Advising and Developing the Pre-Health Professional Student (pp. 234-248). IGI Global. doi.org/10.4018/978-1-7998-9617-3.ch012

• The Healthcare Handbook by Elisabeth Askin & Nathan Moore (2014) Important for students preparing for Interviews.

• The Medical School Admissions Guide: A Harvard MD's Week-By-Week Admissions Handbook, 3rd Edition by Suzanna Miller (2014)

• Who Says You're Dead?: Medical & Ethical Dilemmas for the Curious & Concerned by Jacob Appel (2019)

• Premed Playbook Series by Dr. Ryan Gray

  • Guide to the Medical School Application Process

  • Guide to the MCAT

  • Guide to the Medical School Personal Statement

  • Guide to the Medical School Interview

Compilation Lists of Books for Premeds

• Read, Read, Read, 24+ Most Widely Read Journals in Healthcare

• Medscape's Best Books by Physicians

• University of Minnesota Medical School Premed Reading List

• Stanford Medicine "The book that made me go to medical school – and other good reads"

• The AAMC Great Summer Reads for Aspiring Physicians

• Popular Premed Books from GoodReads

• For a more international perspective, The Guardian published an article called Five Books to Read Before Starting Medical School.

• AAMC Great Summer Reads for Aspiring Physicians

• This list has been created after researching multiple sources including university websites, blogs and comments all noted above. I would also like to thank Dr. Kathleen Kolberg from the University of Notre Dame for her extensive list of suggestions. If you would like to add any further comments or suggest a book, kindly email us. 

• NAAHP has a great list of books too.

Movies of Interest

• And the Band Played On

• Awakenings

• Mash

• The Diving Bell and the Butterfly- Based on a true story

• Philadelphia

• A Beautiful Mind- Based on a true story

• The Elephant Man- Based on a true story

• Brian's Song- Based on a true story

• The Karen Carpenter Story- Based on a true story

• Silkwood based on a true story

• Miss Evers' Boys based on a true story

• Something the Lord Made- Based on a true story

Stay Current on Current Events

It’s important that you stay up to date open current events in health and healthcare. Regularly read articles from your favorite news sources that are well written. You should not have to buy a subscription to the following journals because your school library will have a subscription. Set a target to read at least one article a week. This will also help you keep up your reading fluency for the CARS section of the MCAT. Some options could be:

• The New York Times

• The Economist

• The Atlantic

• The Smithsonian Magazine

• Scientific American

• AAMC News and Insights

* Newport Premedical Consulting, LLC does not recommend or endorse any particular book listed above. Books are listed as a point of resource for further exploration. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualified purchases.