How Doctors Think

by Jerome Groopman, Chief of Experimental Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. A thoughtful guy! This book gives many anecdotes to illustrate some ideas about the kinds of errors physicians make when arriving at incorrect diagnoses. Things like settling quickly on an obvious (but incorrect) diagnosis for a patient who is extremely unpleasant, or the converse, a reluctance to order very uncomfortable tests for patients they like very much and feel sympathy for. And much more. Not earth shattering, by any means, but some very interesting stories. And, surprisingly, some take-home lessons about questions you can ask your own physician to make sure they do not miss any crucial possibilities. Recommended.

Life on the Color Line

By Greg Williams, the new UC President. What a remarkable, harrowing, touching, and inspiring life this guy has led! His improbable story: born to an Italian-American father and southern belle mom and raised in Virginia in a town fraught with racial tension, until his charming but alcoholic and abusive father ran his restaurant into the ground. After his mother left and the family touched bottom, his father moved Greg and his brother to live with relatives in Muncie, Indiana - BLACK relatives, because the father was an African American passing as white and the formerly white Greg was now a very white African American, scorned by both sides of his heritage. How he suffered, coped and ultimately triumphed is a lesson in American racial attitudes - and the role played by his "truly mother" Dora is deeply moving. VERY highly recommended.