Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures (2007)

Vincent Lam's M.D. training pulses through this novel-in-stories about young Canadian docs in obvious ways, from the anxiety of getting into med school to the drudgery of dissections to the dire stakes of everyday patient care. But it also shows up in subtler details. In painfully visceral descriptions, Lam explores an alcoholic doctor with SARS and a pregnant patient undergoing a C-section without proper anesthesia. It's hard not to compare stories about doctors' overlapping lives, loves, and patients to Grey's Anatomy, but Bloodletting & Miraculous Curescuts deeper in the way only books can — and without any McNicknames or supply-closet hookups. A-