Customer Reviews
Prospective medical students must read - By: A. Bhujwalla, 30 May 2008 
A sadistic yet hilarious take on life as a doctor. it made me want to study medicine even more!!!
please please please buy! - By: H. Sarna, 11 Mar 2008 A fantastic read for any doctors out there who remember what it was like being a house officer/intern. Surprisingly close to real life in the UK too!! For those who don't work in the medical sphere - still a great read & almost certainly a bit of an eye opener.
An Account of Discovering The Meaning of Doctorhood - By: Talc Demon, 05 Sep 2007 Samuel Shem's take on the first year of being a Doctor, the internship, is an excellent account of the destruction of the ideology of Medicine & the gradual erosion of innocence within this context.
Basch, Shem's protagonist is introduced to the daily practicalities of being an Intern, by The Fat Man who kicks Basch's lofty ideals out from under him, giving him the cynical know-how to survive the ordeal. Basch turns from being shocked at such disrespect, to eventualy embracing it & losing his own humanity.
Shem chronicles Basch's use of sex, humour, cynicism & finallly denial as tools to survive the onslaught from the patients & the Institution's inane ethos of treating their patients to death. What struck resonance with myself was not only the connection with medicine (having been the equivalent of an intern myself) but the analogy (intended or not) with growing up & the loss of childhood belief & innocence. This belief is something that society maintains when it comes to medicine, a belief that everyone (or at least many) can be cured, & that Doctors can do it.
Basch's journey is that of discovering the true meaning of being a Doctor & rather than becoming permanently jaded & disillusioned, he finds the balance between reality & holding on to the origin of why he chose medicine as a career. This is an excellent read, evoking thought & reflection, truly a memorable book that I took something away from. I look forward to Shem's book on his experience within psychiatry.
Insightful but self-absorbed - By: Paul Park, 17 Aug 2006 
Maybe it's that it's an intern in the US in 1975 rather than a PRHO in the UK in 2000, but a lot of this book didn't click with me or my experiences. In this interesting semi-biographical account of his experiences, Bergman says he didn't cure anyone the whole year. I couldn't have gone a whole week without curing someone.
The year he writes about is hellish & chaotic, & he's a good writer, but the smell of wilful exaggeration is never very far away. Did he reallly know someone who punctured the heart while trying to put in a chest drain? Did he reallly despairingly sleep with several sexy nurses? Did he reallly have a profound emotional epiphany while watching a mime performance? Dear me.
In short, I didn't enjoy it much but he's got a fine ear for anecdote & writing in general. Just don't take it too seriously.
excellently dark but american - By: , 17 Dec 2003 
this is the original & much imitated "oh no i'm losing the plot & i'm a junior doctor" book. he gets a bit emotional & cheesy sometimes, but its a great collection of the best mess gags.
theres another excellent english junior doctor book by michael foxton callled 'bedside stories' which is the angry NHS junior doctor column guy who wrote for the guardian, & thats hilarious & horrible.
