Fiction books every healthcare professional needs to read in their lifetime

Confession: I spent the first decade of my healthcare career convinced learning anything other than clinical info was a waste of time.

But some of my greatest clinical pearls came from unexpected places — like fiction books & stories.

The next time you’re tempted to pile on a course, journal article, or conference you don’t really need...

Here are the fiction books that will help to feed your brain but also help it relax too. The ultimate combination for health care providers.👇 (grouped by topic you'd otherwise take a course on, because duh)

Highly sensitive traits, women’s nervous systems + healthy/oppressed rage

• The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches

• It Ends With Us

• Mad Honey

• The Once and Future Witches

Women succeeding in medicine, STEM + male-dominated industries

• Atmosphere

• The Women

• Lessons in Chemistry

• The Alice Network

Mental health, addiction, attachment + family/generational trauma

• The Bright Years

• The Things We Never Say

• A Man Called Ove

• Turtles All the Way Down

Sexuality, gender identity + expression, sexual repression + LGBTQ+ experiences

• Heated Rivalry

• The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

• The Everlasting

• Part of Your World

Using your voice, trusting your gut + navigating systemic oppression as a woman

• The Ten Thousand Doors of January

• The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

• The Nightingale

• Go as a River

  
  

Poverty, rural living + lack of access to education & healthcare

• The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek

• Educated

• The Frozen River

• The Four Winds

Complex + polarizing political, religious & cultural beliefs in patients / colleagues who may see the world differently than you

• Yesteryear

• Good People

• The True True Story of Raja the Gullible

• Happy Land

Caregiving for aging family members + loved ones with serious/complex illness

• Say You’ll Remember Me

• The Fault in Our Stars

• Firefly Lane

• My Sister’s Keeper

What fully living is actually about when your career isn’t the center

• Theo of Golden

• The Correspondent

• Happy Place

• Remarkably Bright Creatures

Honorable Mentions:

Fits in no category. Fits in every category.

Just read them for the hell of it, please.

• The Artist & the Feast

• The Book That Made Me Think of You

• Where the Crawdads Sing

• The Help

There’s a reason the cliché “facts tell, stories sell” rings true.

Facts can tell you about an experience.

A story lets you connect to it.

I don’t need to memorize what I learned from these books.

I don’t need to remember which slide it was on or dig through my notes.

It’s just THERE in my system.

And it changes the energy I bring when another human is sitting in front of me.

You were probably also taught: Fiction = what you read for fun.

Which sounds harmless until you realize the underlying message:

Learning comes first. Fun comes after you've earned it.

Respectfully, I call BS.

Your work, learning & development GET TO BE FUN.

Not because you get the little dopamine high from earning another certificate or adding letters behind your name...

But because you’re allowed to enjoy the actual process of learning.

Sometimes you just need to put down the nonfiction self-help book, the clinical textbook, the journal article, the Substack essay, the course sitting unfinished in Teachable...

and pick up the damn novel.

Especially if you keep saying you want to read more for pleasure.

And yes, I KNOW:

You won’t get a CEU for reading any of these.

But you’re also not getting a CEU for the three courses sitting unfinished in your Kajabi account.

And you have enough to renew your license anyway, don’t you? If you don't that's what MedBridge is for.

OK healthcare women who moonlight as book lovers, I HAVE TO KNOW:

What fiction book do I need to read next?!

Tell me your fave + what you learned from it and WHY it stayed with you. Reach out and let me know!

PS Send this to your journal club and come back to this on a day you’re restless in front of your laptop about to hit “buy” on a course. Read one of these instead.

Happy reading!