Discover Magazine's Vital Signs
True Tales of Medical Mysteries, Obscure Diseases, and Life-Saving Diagnoses
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Narrated by:
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Mark Moseley
About this listen
From a case of hysterical paralysis to a pregnancy puncturing a lung, twenty-five of the most thrilling medical mysteries known to man (and doctor)."Vital Signs," a popular column featured in Discover Magazine, has long been a favorite of readers, showcasing, each month, fascinating new tales of strange illnesses and diseases that baffle doctors and elude diagnosis. Each tale is true and borders on the unbelievable.
It's no wonder that throughout the years the column has become an unofficial textbook for medical students, interns, doctors, and anyone interested in human illness and staying healthy.
Now, physician and "Vital Signs" editor Robert Norman has compiled the very best of the series into an intriguing and suspenseful collection for fans and new listeners alike. A young woman carries a baby that wasn't her own - and wasn't even a human; Aretha Franklin gives a physician the insight needed to save a life; a modern gynecologist faces an ancient disease. These cases and more, representing a wide variety of unique medical anomalies and life-or-death situations, bring listeners to the front lines of the medical fray.
Fans of hit medical dramas such as House MD will savor the opportunity to listen to the real-life cases that puzzled doctors, the gripping detective work that ensued, and the completely unexpected, often life-saving diagnoses. Discover Magazine's Vital Signs is a glimpse into the exciting work of real medical professionals, told from their perspective, and revealing that anything can happen in medicine. Listeners will never look at a "routine check-up" the same again.
©2013 Robert A. Norman (P)2013 Audible, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Editorial reviews
"Vital Signs" is a wildly popular column in Discover magazine that describes bizarre, comical, and sometimes squeamish medical cases and mysteries.
This thrilling audiobook, compiled by Dr. Robert A. Norman, and narrated with gripping simplicity by Mark Moseley, compiles the best real-life articles from the series, including: a pregnant woman whose unborn baby may or may not even be human, the recurrence of an ancient disease thought to be eradicated, the time Aretha Franklin told a perplexed doctor how to save a patient’s life, and many more crazy tales.
Pretend you’re a detective mastermind, get your sleuthing hat on, and see if you can solve these outlandish medical mysteries.
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- By: Paul A. Ruggieri MD
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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As an active surgeon and former department chairman, Dr. Paul A. Ruggieri has seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of his profession. In Confessions of a Surgeon, he pushes open the doors of the OR and reveals the inscrutable place where lives are improved, saved, and sometimes lost. He shares the successes, failures, remarkable advances, and camaraderie that make it exciting.
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Enjoyed the anecdotes!
- By suzanne on 07-31-17
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Healing Hearts
- A Memoir of a Female Heart Surgeon
- By: Kathy Magliato
- Narrated by: Renée Raudman
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Dr. Kathy Magliato is one of fewer than a dozen female heart surgeons practicing in the world today. She is also a member of an even more exclusive group - those surgeons who perform heart transplants. Healing Hearts is the story of the making of a surgeon who also calls herself a wife and mother.
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Healing Hearts
- By Jean on 01-14-12
By: Kathy Magliato
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Critical Care
- A New Nurse Faces Death, Life, and Everything in Between
- By: Theresa Brown
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 5 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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In her former career as an English professor, Theresa Brown had been shielded from the harsh reality of death. That all changed the day she decided to become an oncology nurse. In Critical Care, Theresa writes powerfully and honestly about her first year on the hospital floor. With great compassion and a disarming sense of humor, she shares the trials and triumphs of her patients and comes to realize that caring for a patient means much more than simply treating a disease.
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Excellent all the way around!
- By Susan on 10-12-17
By: Theresa Brown
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Birth Day
- A Pediatrician Explores the Science, the History, and the Wonder of Childbirth
- By: Mark Sloan MD
- Narrated by: Mark Sloan MD
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Abridged
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"I delivered twenty babies in the summer of 1977. I was hardly more than a baby myself, just turned 24 and starting my third year of medical school." So began Mark Sloan's three-decades-long exploration of the wonders and oddities of human childbirth. Pediatrician, husband, and father, the author has attended nearly 3000 births since that long-ago summer, encountering everything from routine deliveries to tense labor-room dramas.
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Great Book - Heavy on the History
- By Robert Ingalls on 03-16-17
By: Mark Sloan MD
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Brainstorm
- Detective Stories from the World of Neurology
- By: Suzanne O'Sullivan
- Narrated by: Christine Williams
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Brainstorm follows the stories of people whose medical diagnoses are so strange even their doctor struggles to know how to solve them. A man who sees cartoon characters running across the room; a girl whose world suddenly seems completely distorted, as though she were Alice in Wonderland; another who transforms into a ragdoll whenever she even thinks about moving. The brain is the most complex structure in the universe. Neurologists must puzzle out life-changing diagnoses from the tiniest of clues, the ultimate medical detective work.
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Not As Compelling...
- By Douglas on 11-08-18
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Shocked
- Adventures in Bringing Back the Recently Dead
- By: David Casarett M.D.
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Not too long ago, there was no coming back from death. But now, with revolutionary medical advances, death has become just another serious complication. As a young medical student, Dr. David Casarett was inspired by the story of a two-year-old girl named Michelle Funk. Michelle fell into a creek and was underwater for over an hour. When she was found she wasn't breathing, and her pupils were fixed and dilated. That drowning should have been fatal. But after three hours of persistent work, a team of doctors and nurses was able to bring her back.
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Dead vs. Sincerely Dead
- By Gillian on 06-24-16
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When Breath Becomes Air
- By: Paul Kalanithi, Abraham Verghese - foreword
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra, Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated.
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Phenomenal book!
- By A. Potter on 01-16-16
By: Paul Kalanithi, and others
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Rise and Shine
- The Path to Life
- By: Simon Lewis
- Narrated by: Kelsey Grammer
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Crushed between a truck and a tree, Simon and his wife were both pronounced dead at the scene of a horrific car accident. Enduring a broken skull, jaw, arms, clavicle and pelvis, followed by a coma, Simon lives to tell his remarkable journey from tragedy to triumph.
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Amazing opportunities for healing!
- By Leah on 04-29-17
By: Simon Lewis
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Doctored
- The Disillusionment of an American Physician
- By: Sandeep Jauhar
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Hoping for the stability he needs to start a family, Sandeep Jauhar, an attending cardiologist, accepts a position at a massive teaching hospital on the outskirts of Queens. With a decade's worth of elite medical training behind him, he is eager to settle down and reap the rewards of countless sleepless nights. Instead, he is confronted with sobering truths. Doctors' morale is low and getting lower.
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Frank, inside perspective on the follies of unintended consequences in medical reform
- By JW on 02-25-18
By: Sandeep Jauhar
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The Undead
- Organ Harvesting, The Ice-Water Test, Beating Heart Cadavers - How Medicine Is Blurring the Line Between Life and Death
- By: Dick Teresi
- Narrated by: David Marantz
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Important and provocative, The Undead examines why even with the tools of advanced technology, what we think of as life and death, consciousness and nonconsciousness, is not exactly clear - and how this problem has been further complicated by the business of organ harvesting.
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Eye opening
- By Amy Giglio on 07-01-18
By: Dick Teresi
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In Shock
- My Journey from Death to Recovery and the Redemptive Power of Hope
- By: Dr. Rana Awdish
- Narrated by: Dr. Rana Awdish, Teri Schnaubelt
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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In Shock is a riveting first-hand account from a young critical care physician, who in the passage of a moment is transfigured into a dying patient. This transposition, coincidentally timed at the end of her medical training, instantly lays bare the vast chasm between the conventional practice of medicine and the stark reality of the prostrate patient.
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Read this book!
- By CT on 11-08-17
By: Dr. Rana Awdish
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The Pain Chronicles
- Cures, Myths, Mysteries, Prayers, Diaries, Brain Scans, Healing, and the Science of Suffering
- By: Melanie Thernstrom
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Each of us will know physical pain in our lives, but none of us knows when it will come or how long it will stay. Today as much as 10 percent of the population of the United States suffers from chronic pain. It is more widespread, misdiagnosed, and undertreated than any major disease. While recent research has shown that pain produces pathological changes to the brain and spinal cord, many doctors and patients still labor under misguided cultural notions and outdated scientific dogmas.
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Informative, well researched and nicely written
- By Nathan O'Hara on 08-21-10
What listeners say about Discover Magazine's Vital Signs
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Kailyn R. Elliott
- 08-01-15
Nice compilation of medical stories
Overall a very nice, and digestible, group of stories. I listened to them on my walk to and from work.
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- Marsha L. Woerner
- 02-10-20
Fascinating and enlightening
(As posted in GoodReads)
I would love to be able to subscribe just to Discover magazine's "Vital Signs signs" column, but I'm not sure how I would do that, but the subject matter truly intrigues me!
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- JeanR
- 04-23-24
Fascinating stories
As a retired clinical pharmacist, I found all of these stories fascinating! There were a couple of times that I had to re-pronounce some words that the narrator had said in my head to figure out what he was saying! LOL! But I know many people pronounce the name of medication and procedures differently. Downloaded this to keep me company for a 6 Hour drive and it was well worth the time to listen to it.
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- Patrick
- 08-04-14
Not for a hypochondriac!
The incorrect pronunciation of many medical terms was very irritating. Please re-record this correctly. Many of the stories were very basic and will bore those with some medical background but most are fascinating and all well presented, succinct and suspenseful for any layman. Beware that everyone will identify with symptoms in some of the stories so anyone with hypochondriac tendencies should avoid this.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Jacquelyn Antal
- 04-20-18
Phenomenal and fascinating
This book is very well written, well narrated and an absolute pleasure to listen to! Get it and you will be drawn in to the interesting case presentations, it is by far my favorite Audible book so far!
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- ashley
- 08-16-14
Unique and entertaining
Any additional comments?
I really enjoyed listening to the articles and trying to figure out what was going on in each situation. I have a fairly substantial history with medicine, which helped, but I don't think would be necessary to enjoy this book.
I very rarely give 5 star reviews; I reserve those for books that change my life. While this one was educational and fascinating, it just didnt blow my cocks off.
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- Kate 33
- 07-06-14
Tedious
Half of the book seems to be repetitive biographies of the contributors to the book. The incidents themselves were lacking although I'm sure not so to the individuals involved.
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3 people found this helpful