If you enjoy stories of medical mysteries, Diagnosis by Lisa Sanders is for you!

As a Yale School of Medicine physician, the New York Times bestselling author of Every Patient Tells a Story, and inspiration and adviser for the hit Fox TV drama House, M.D., Lisa Sanders has seen it all. And yet she is often confounded by the cases she describes in her column: unexpected collections of symptoms that she and other physicians struggle to diagnose.

A twenty-eight-year-old man, vacationing in the Bahamas for his birthday, tries some barracuda for dinner. Hours later, he collapses on the dance floor with crippling stomach pains. A middle-aged woman returns to her doctor, after visiting two days earlier with a mild rash on the back of her hands. Now the rash has turned purple and has spread across her entire body in whiplike streaks. A young elephant trainer in a traveling circus, once head-butted by a rogue zebra, is suddenly beset with splitting headaches, as if someone were “slamming a door inside his head.”

In each of these cases, the path to diagnosis—and treatment—is winding, sometimes frustratingly unclear. Dr. Sanders shows how making the right diagnosis requires expertise, painstaking procedure, and sometimes a little luck. Intricate, gripping, and full of twists and turns, Diagnosis puts readers in the doctor’s place. It lets them see what doctors see, feel the uncertainty they feel—and experience the thrill when the puzzle is finally solved.

This book is absolutely fascinating! There is a Netflix series based on this but of course the book is always better with rich details. Short and to the point, the essays are easy to read and you will find yourself immersed in these medical mysteries as I did. A great book!

Due out on August 13.

Collection of well-written, edge-of-the-seat stories

I enjoyed this collection of well-written, edge-of-the-seat stories. Because these came from New York Times columns, they are short and crisp. In certain respects the stories are scary because it is sometimes a dim recollection that saves the patient. On the other hand, it is reassuring that these brilliant people are around. I recommend this book for anyone interested in medicine.

Thank you to NetGalley, Broadway Books and Lisa Sanders for an ARC ebook copy to review. As always, an honest review from me.

Like:
- super interesting medical mysteries
- Also a Netflix series about this book
- The right length for each medical mystery- long enough to give the full mystery with enough details, but short enough to hold the reader's attention throughout
- Not done in a scary way to make people extremely concerned for their health, but more of a mystery novel - lots of medical detective work

Love:
- shows how an excellent comprehensive medical history can really help to diagnose diseases, especially the more rare ones
- A fascinating look at the more rare diseases, that most people haven't heard of

Dislike:
- if you've had a lot of medial issues or medical trauma, parts of this book could be triggering for you (feel free to message me if you're concerned about this)

Wish that:
- I had Netflix so I could watch the documentary based on this book #fascinating
- There's another book like this but only focused on the diagnostic process for chronic illnesses only

Overall, a fascinating look into the diagnostic process of a physician, focused on difficult to solve medical mysteries. Even if you don't have a medical background, you will understand and enjoy it too.

This is an incredibly interesting collection of essays which first appeared in the New York Times Magazine Column. Each essay is a case in which a patient presents with mysterious symptoms. The doctors then do some detective work, with a little luck thrown in, which leads to a successful outcome for the patient. In a way, it kind of reminds me of the tv show House. I'm glad that they also included how the patient did after the diagnosis and treatment instead of just leaving the essay off at the diagnosis. If you're into medical stories/cases then I highly recommend this book. I read it a few essays at a time.

"I received an advanced copy of this book and am voluntarily leaving a review."

An interesting collection of essays that first appeared in the NYT. Each essay describes a case in which a patient presents with a mysterious set of symptoms. Doctor detective work (and sometimes just luck) leads to a successful outcome for the patient.

I love medical shows I love House I love the good doctor and don’t get me started on Greys anatomy! This book was so interesting and it gave me hope when they finally found diagnosis! This gives me more respect for my doctors that I go too!

I received an arc of this book from netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I liked this one, it was interesting to get to read about all the different diseases and ailments and I liked how the stories were kept short enough to keep readers interested till the end, but also long enough for details. I would recommend this one to people who are interested in medical things- but if you get squeamish this one might not be for you.

If you liked House or like to follow any type of medical mysteries, this book is for you. This book is chock full of a variety of short experiences about patients with weird problems being diagnosed with a variety of illnesses that aren’t always what they seem. Not every story is a happy one, but in real life it is unfortunately what happens.

I found myself flipping through a lot of the stories in one sitting. They’re interesting enough to just keep going, and each experience is so unique you just want to see what the next person’s experience was. It is written in such a way that a person doesn’t need a lot of medical knowledge, just some basic understanding of the human body and disease, to get what’s going on.

This is definitely a unique read, and as someone who dealt with being misdiagnosed for almost a decade, I felt somewhat vindicated by the commentary and stories in the book. Would definitely suggest reading this.

Fascinating read if you're at all interested in medical mysteries. Little bite-sized chapters are great to sneak in when you have a spare minute to read. Any medical jargon is broken down into easier terms. This would be a great gift for someone interested in medicine.

Diagnosis is a interesting and fascinating book. I loved this book and could not put it down. Anyone interested in the medical field should read this. A must read.

Thank you to NetGalley for a Kindle ARC of Diagnosis.

This is a series of true life medical mysteries grouped into common symptoms most people have experienced once in their lives, like headaches or a strange rash.

The vignettes are brief and to the point, almost like a doctor's appointment, where you spend more time waiting to see a medical professional than you do with him or her.

Thankfully, all of the medical mysteries collected in Diagnosis are solved, sometimes through good luck, the gut instincts of the physician in charge, or the advice of a colleague. Or all three.

The author, Dr. Sanders, writes with compassion and honesty, especially when she points out that doctors take for granted how basic skills like listening to a patient and taking down detailed notes on how she or he is feeling is paramount to making the right diagnosis.

She also mentions (quite correctly) that most physicians rely too heavily on scientific tools like CAT scans, ultrasounds and many other invasive procedures; assuming these exams will pinpoint the problem.

In some of these cases, Dr. Sanders illustrates how a simple test that required no medical equipment whatsoever was able to determine why some patients were so sick.

She also held herself accountable for an error in diagnosing a patient, calling herself out that she neglected to pay attention to this person's medical history before she was too busy focused on other aspects of his health. She warned how easy it was to fall into this trap, to forget about the basics when taking down a patient's health history and not be swayed by what was the troubling issue at the time.

I did notice how many of these cases, some of the patients exhibited symptoms reminiscent of Lyme disease and many doctors had to consider that possibility before discovering it was something more rare.

Makes me wonder just how many people really do have Lyme disease. Or not. Scary.

This was a fascinating read. I wish Dr. Sanders was my physician.

As a long time fan of Sanders’ New York Times column, I was very happy to receive this arc to review. And I was not disappointed. Organized by five general types of diagnostic presentations, Diagnosis offers readers a look at the difficulties that health professionals and their patients face when presented with symptoms that may appear to be common but that refuse to respond to common treatments, or that may appear to be completely unidentifiable. The reader learns the importance of hands on examinations and patience as well as the training health professionals receive that cause them to approach their cases in a rigorous fashion yet be willing both to think “zebra” instead of “horse” and to call on other specialists and diagnosticians to help solve the mysteries of our human bodies and the various agents, including our own bodies, that assail them. Highly recommended.

Fans of the show, House, rejoice! There is a book of mystery diagnosis for you to jump into and play doctor to solve some medical cases. The book, Diagnosis, is actually written by one of the writers of the TV show House and is has inspired a new Netflix show. I enjoyed read this. My background working as a Registered Nurse may have something to do with it, but those who are unfamiliar with the medical field will also love this book as it relays information in an easy to follow way. The book is broken down into sections by a leading symptom and begins with “fever” and goes from there. In the medical world there are just so many symptoms the body will present but tons and tons of diagnoses possible; some are well known and some are so obscure that only a few professional will have even considered it. Every case is told in a story format and depicts a picture in your mind. I think I was expecting some of the stories to be more bizarre than they were but these were realistic medical mysteries that are presented. Well done!

I really enjoy these types of books, so I was very happy to receive this arc. This book did not disappoint. Very concise stories that give enough to give you what the patient was experiencing and how the diagnosis was finally given. It was also nice to read a bit about how the patient faired after the diagnosis. Good read which can be read a bit at a time or all at once. Thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for the arc of this book in return for my honest review. Receiving the book in this manner had no bearing on my review.

If you were a fan of the TV series House, then you know how tricky & endlessly fascinating medical diagnosis can be. Sanders, a practicing doctor, professor at Yale Medical School, and columnist for the New York Times magazine brings us a wonderfully engaging book full of puzzling cases and their diagnoses.

The chapters, all very readable, are grouped by presenting symptom, in other words, what brought them to the ER. The cases are for people from infants to senior citizens. They can be life-threatening and incurable to something that can easily be treated. The diagnosis often comes from an "A-ha!" moment, but it can also come from observation, tests, or from Internet research.

it's absorbing. Written in language easy for the layman to understand, you'll love this insightful book into how doctors figure out what's wrong with us.