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Harvard Med: The Story Behind America's Premier Medical School and the Making of America's Doctors
 
 
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Harvard Med: The Story Behind America's Premier Medical School and the Making of America's Doctors [Paperback]

John Langone (Author)
3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)


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Book Description

May 1996
The great white marble quadrangle of buildings that comprise the physical heart of the Harvard School of Medicine is perfectly emblematic of a secular temple of medical science. But behind its gleaming facade, a richly complex human drama is played out year after year, little of which is seen by the world that regards Harvard Med as the greatest center of medical education and research in this country. John Langone, who has had a lifelong interest in and familial and journalistic ties to the school, has done a revealing, unauthorized (despite the remarkable access he was given) group portrait of those students, faculty, deans, and gadflies who make Harvard Med what it is.

Who is accepted to Harvard Medical School? Who does the selecting? What qualities (besides academic excellence) do they look for in an applicant? What is it like, day in and day out, to be one of the future physicians or researchers trying to survive in its grip? How has the school reformulated its purpose and reformed its methods through its long history? These and virtually every other significant question readers may have about one of the world's premier medical schools are answered in Harvard Med, an engagingly written, anecdotal, always candid profile of an institution informally known as The Medical School of America.

Founded in 1782 in the closing days of the American Revolution, elevated to greatness under the leadership of University President Charles W. Eliot in the latter part of the nineteenth century, Harvard Medical School arrived at its present state of eminence through a process of change and leadership that will intrigue anyone who is curious about the forces that have shaped the medical profession in America.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Langone's loose, brisk narrative should be required reading for anyone seeking admission to Harvard Medical School, and it will enlighten anyone curious about how doctors are made. A former medical journalist with Discover, he is refreshingly candid ("right now... the third-year students are strictly fumblers and dilettantes, ham-handed impostors even..."). He sits in on tutorials, lab work and dissections of cadavers; interviews faculty and the school's director of admissions; and follows a dozen or so students as they cope with grueling pressures and rites of passage. He also frankly discusses the school's "glass ceilings," which bar women and minorities from full professorships and departmental chairs, and he explores how Harvard Medical School students, residents and faculty, as well as affiliated hospitals and clinics, are attempting to close the gap between caregivers and patients by teaching empathy, disease prevention and health promotion.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

The inside dope from a medical journalist.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 383 pages
  • Publisher: Adams Media Corporation (May 1996)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1558506101
  • ISBN-13: 978-1558506107
  • Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,637,122 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

4 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
3.8 out of 5 stars (4 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars not exactly about Harvard Med., May 31, 2004
By 
After I read the book "Becoming a doctor," I became interested in reading books about medical students. So I started reading this book. I have to say that I am disappointed about its content. Although the author declared in the beginning that this is not a book about any particular medical students, I still expected that he would actually tell us some inside stories about Harvard Med.
From all I can remember, he only talked about orientation day, cadaver dissection period, then graduation day. It happens at all other medical schools. Other than the superficial things, he could have spent some time on explaining and exploring the extra materials that Harvard Med provides. I still do not know much about how the students at Harvard are learning medicine. What makes Harvard's teaching so different and so much better than other medical schools? He failed to explain it.
This content doesn't really fit with the book title.
Some of the chapters are not really related to Harvard Med. It has quite a few intensive personal interviews. However, it seems that the author were using those people to express his own views about the impersonal services HMOs that are taking quality patient time which doctors may provide. That is all he talks about, and there was no other kinds of opinions that those doctors, students were expressing. And this part of the conversation is over expressed in this book.
Overall, it is not all about Harvard med. It is really just a collection of random Harvard Med articles.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars OK book, June 30, 1999
By 
Frank (Stockton CA) - See all my reviews
This book about Harvard Med by a medical columnist in the area, sure enough, imparts a lot of information about Harvard Med.
But along the way it suffers from being cumbersome and somewhat disjointed -- the author constantly flips back and forth between the history of Harvard Med, the stories of graduates, the stories of students, the stories of professors, and discussions of research medicine vs. specialization vs. general practice. Mixed in with these are the author's own experiences -- as a neighborhood boy visiting the campus, and as a coddled medical columnist who was allowed to audit the med school's fundamental gross anatomy class, and whose every ail is treated by the country's leading Harvard doctors.
After reading the book you'll know more about Harvard Med, but you'll probably see your doctor for dizziness.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Great for pre-med's, February 27, 1999
By A Customer
John Langone writes about the history of medicine and the state of the profession today. Excellent reading for anyone interested in a career in medicine.
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Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
ORIENTATION DAY FOR YET ANOTHER FRESHMAN CLASS AT HARvard Medical School and the warm, soft breeze that plays over the Boston campus of the nation's third-oldest medical school promises autumn soon, the season that eases the transition from summer laziness to hard winter work. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
gross lab, female medical college, alumni bulletin
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Harvard Med, United States, New England, Harvard College, Oliver Wendell Holmes, New York, Fatigue Lab, Orientation Day, Harvard Corporation, Shawn Nasseri, Beth Israel, Catscan Jack, Charles River, Great White Quadrangle, Ned Cassem, George Murray, World War, Alumni Day, Countway Library, Dean Tosteson, Eddie Conroy, Henry Jacob Bigelow, John Warren, Nobel Prize, Old George
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