Cosy up with any good books lately?

Abstract

I participated in medical school interviews last year and quickly learnt how informative a question like “What do you read for fun?” can be. One candidate mentioned Vanity Fair and when asked his opinion of Becky Sharp, he blurted out a disbelieving “She's terrible!” The smile on my face was from ear to ear. Something about the protagonist had struck a chord with him, and when he spoke out against her, she seemed almost real. What I found particularly interesting was that she made him seem more real as well. Novels and non-fiction can be found popping out of backpacks all along the aisle, and many of us are just as eager about reading our books as sharing them with our friends. At the San Luigi Medical School in Italy, researchers found that medical students do read (68% of 34 students had read at least one book in the preceding month) and that the texts of choice were novels and short stories.1 The preference for fiction may be its appeal to the imagination. We live and breathe medicine for quite a few hours each day and when left to our own devices, Sherlock Holmes or Dracula may provide the rest our brains need from the healthcare world. One medical student wrote that she reads Anne of Green Gables because these are stories she “read as a girl. It's funny, tragic at times and ever so romantic. And everything is too pretty in there; sometimes you just need that to feel better about things.” People read the newspaper to find out about the world outside. Novels and short stories, in contrast, provide a little something more. A study of medical students at Newcastle University in England showed that medical students read for a variety of reasons. Extracurricular material can lead …