The House of God: The Classic Novel of Life and Death in an American Hospital (Mass Market Paperback)

~ M.D. Samuel Shem (Author) "We expect the world of doctors..." (more)
Key Phrases: anal mirror, third toothbrush, bowel run, Yellow Man, Eat My Dust, Gomer City (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Brilliant !" -- Chicago  Tribune.

"Bawdy blistering... this is  Catch-22 with stethoscopes."  --Cosmopolitan.

"Does  for the practice of medicine what  Catch-22 and M*A *S *H did  for the practice of warfare." -- The  Newark Star-Ledger

"Wildly funny...  frightening... outrageous, moving... a story of  modern medicine rarely, if, ever told." --  The Houston Chronicle -- Review

Review

"Brilliant !" -- Chicago  Tribune.

"Bawdy blistering... this is  Catch-22 with stethoscopes."  --Cosmopolitan.

"Does  for the practice of medicine what  Catch-22 and M*A *S *H did  for the practice of warfare." -- The  Newark Star-Ledger

"Wildly funny...  frightening... outrageous, moving... a story of  modern medicine rarely, if, ever told." --  The Houston Chronicle

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Dell Books (December 15, 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0440133688
• ISBN-13: 978-0440133681
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (147 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #82,696 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

164 of 166 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The real deal if you're in medicine, scary for the layman, December 19, 2001

By	Mark E. Baxter "Inquirer" (Layton, UT United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

There are all kinds of things I hate about this book. I hate remembering how long I would go without sleep and the psychic torture that an internship inflicts on you. I hated the depersonalization of patients. I hated the sexual escapades. Most of all, I hated having in print the real feelings of an intern who has been up for three days - praying on the way to the ER that that Nursing Home Gomer with 20 fatal diagnoses would have the decency to croak before you got there so you could get an extra five minutes of sleep or a stale doughnut before the cafeteria closed again.

Shem portrays masterfully the jumble of emotions of a typical intern. There is a superficial level of glossy brown-nosing that got you into med school in the first place. Buzz words like compassion, continuity of care and empathy are used with the teaching physicians and in meetings. Then there is a deeper level of survival where you would kill your mother for 5 minutes of sleep or being able to crap without the code blue pager going off. This level is usually not discussed or written about in many of the typical intern coming-of-age books out there. Not because it isn't true, but because it's uncomfortable and offensive to non-physicians. Shem is the master of this level of medical thinking. No one else even comes close. Shem approaches but doesn't quite get to an even more primal level - that of duty. This level is what keeps an intern from punching his residency directors or the arrogant surgeon who asks him "What is the difference between a sh*thead and a brown-noser" and then tells you the answer is depth perception.(True story) It's what makes you do your best when you know the patient is hopeless or even abusive as you try your best to save them from themselves or some disease.

The humor is black as night and the sex is soft-core porn, according to my nephew in medical school to whom I sent a copy of this book.

House of God has two profound themes. The first is a detailed description of medicine and medical training. This theme is presented with black humor, and some (but not as much as you think) exaggeration. I have read nothing that does this better. The second theme of the book is universal, however. It is the theme of Man vs. World and the World wins, but the Man is too maimed to know it.

The book still disturbs and haunts me because Shem puts in print graphically and eloquently some of the thoughts and occurences that we don't even admit to ourselves.

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars House of Reality, January 9, 2000

By	MD resident (Newark, NJ) - See all my reviews

It's interesting to hear non-medical opinions on HOG. This book is actually not that humorous. I can see how it "seems" to be; with all the dark morbid humor and the LAWS. A colleage told me not to read this book until i had finished my 3rd year of MD-school. Why? Until you put yourself on the ward, this book doesn't mean much to you. I didn't believe him and read it at the end of my 2nd year. I read it again at the end of my 3rd year. It was like i was reading a different novel. There is no way to clearly describe the sensation of having 7 admissions on call...all gomers....trying desperatly to BUFF and TURF them.

This book is a must read for the doctor to be. The nonmedical world has to realise that what seems as perverse dark sick humor (gomers, turfing, not doing anything, the only good admission is a dead admission) is merely an attempt to survive the onslaught of internship. Balance fatigue with limited knowledge and throw in some unparralled responsibility and you get a taste of what it's like.

House of God does just that.

Oh.. and never ever.... go to a teaching hospital in July. :)

35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The "Catch 22" of the medical world., June 15, 2000

By	Yuval Ben- Amnon,MD. (Israel) - See all my reviews

I have read this book three times: When I was a first year medical student I found it to be exaggerated. When I was in my intern year I found it to be an understatement. Reading it for the third time in the middle of my residency allowed me to have a more mature perspective of this book. I find it to have a striking resemblence to another classic: "Catch 22" by Joseph Heller. I will start by saying that both books are NOT great literature masterpieces . They do not stand in one line with Joyce, Amos Oz, Steinback or Hemmingway and as a work of art they therefore deserve , in my opoinion 2 or 3 stars of rating.They do share, however, a unique quality which is this: They both manage to capture in an astonishing accurracy, through sarcasm and absurd, all that is twisted, wrong and cruel in the systems they deal with. Being both a doctor and an IDF officer, I can testify from personal experience that both the military and the medical field have a lot in common , mainly that they both are a stressfull, wearing enviroments. Shem's accurate perception lead this book to being the sharpest description of this enviroment so far, just as "Catch 22" was in its times I therefore share the enthusiasm of the majority of the reviewers of this book, as much as I can identify with the ones who found it disappointing in the literary sense. It therfore gets a rating of 4.