Osler Canon

The idea for a "medical canon" began with Sir William Osler's bedside library. Early in his life,  "he began his life-long habit of a half-hour's reading in bed before putting out the light.  Most medical students, alas, are too engrossed with their work for such literary pursuits, desirable though they may be."  Osler also wrote:  "It is astonishing with how little reading a doctor can practice medicine, but it is not astonishing how badly he may do it."  He looked at "reading as an avocation" and a "quinquennial brain dusting"

While few of us will read all of Osler's recommended books, his suggestion of a Bedside Library is inspired.

BED-SIDE LIBRARY FOR MEDICAL STUDENTS

Selections of
William Osler, M.D.
Regius Professor of Medicine
Oxford, England

I.       Old and New Testaments
II.       Shakespeare
III.     Montaigne
IV.     Plutarch’s Lives
V.      Marcus Aurelius
VI.     Religio Medici
VII.    Epictetus   
VIII.   Don Quixote
IX.     Emerson
X.      Oliver Wendell Holmes - Breakfast-Table Series