Sufficiently Advanced Exchange

Text: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18492
Free audio book: https://librivox.org/star-surgeon-by-alan-edward-nourse/

Name: Star Surgeon
Author: Alan E. Nourse
Length: short novel made up of linked stories, approx 50k words
Sub-genre: Interplanetary medical drama / fish out of water protagonist

Why it's awesome: Dal Tigmar is the first alien to join the all-human "Star Surgeons," in a universe where interstellar doctors are basically treated like rock stars. His human friend Frank "Tiger" Martin staunchly supports him in the face of species-ist/racist harassment from co-workers and higher-ups who think aliens aren't capable of being good doctors. Dal is a lovely main character: intelligent, hard working, caring and compassionate, stubborn in the face of obstacles but not immune to self-doubt, and his relationship with Tiger is surprisingly nuanced.

Any other important information to know about: Some plague/pandemic based storylines. Most of the outdated ableist language & attitudes (especially regarding the ranking of species as having higher/lower intelligence "levels") that you'd expect from being written by a doctor in the 1960s. Literally zero female characters, as far as I remember.