Customer Reviews

Intern: A Doctor's Initiation

5 star:		(33)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

As a physician, I don't have much time to read a book for leisure, but I couldn't put this book down.
You don't have to be in the medical profession, or have gone through internship to appreciate this book, but it definitely brought back memories from my own training. I wish I had kept a journal during my internship and residency.
Will this book be our generation's version of House Of God?- I'm not sure, but one thing is for sure, it is a great read, well written, and a lot better than the sweater I got for christmas!

There are several books I've read that speak along the same lines of this book but there is one things that stands out. The difference in this publication lies in that the author speaks magnitudes about one's natural tendency to feel lost in the environment of medicine. It illuminates the emotions a person experiences with clarity and depth. More importantly, in my opinion Dr. Jauhar displays bravery in undergoing the task of writing his experiences.. I do not know any person who is willing to admit to their weaknesses though we all have them. He goes on to create a lucid picture of the hierarchy in the health system while taking the reader along for a ride down nostolgic paths of how one found his/her purpose in pursuing such a career. There is not much more to say except Dr. Jauhar should be applauded for expressing the truth that much of us are scared to admit we dealt with at one time.

Books that chronicle first-person accounts of the medical training gauntlet could fill a large gurney. How many more memoirs of sleep-deprived bewilderment are we to take? What new or novel insights could a doctor provide? Sandeep Jauhar offers his tome to the groaning collection in INTERN: A Doctor's Initiation.

And an initiation it is, bordering on a medical version of hazing. Jauhar writes with uncommon skill, precision and sensitivity, disclosing himself behind the white lab coat in confessing his uncertainties, sibling rivalry with his older brother, the weight of parental expectations and the tsunami of information doctors are expected to learn. During the journey, Jauhar becomes afflicted with disc problems and gets a firsthand taste of the joys of being a patient.

Seeing the "initiation" through Jauhar's eyes forces one to wonder, "Is this really any way to train physicians?" The process seems designed to grind them down to the point where patients are obstacles to "get through," in order to get to sleep or on to the next step. Medicine becomes a matter of checking off the boxes and covering your ass in case you are sued for medical malpractice. The process almost seems designed to callous doctors and inure them to empathic impulses. The book also suggests what a sham the so-called "informed consent" process has become, perfunctory paperwork completed to CYA instead of a clear communication of risks and complications.

INTERN is like a car wreck - you don't want to look but you cannot help yourself stare. Dr. Jauhar emerges with seemingly most of his compassion intact. One wonders if he is more the exception than the rule. A good, albeit unsettling, view of medical training!

Intern
This book is a brilliant, honest and touching memoir of one man's journey through his medical internship at New York Hospital. I could not put it down. I had no idea how grueling the process was. He has shared intimate details of his daily life on the wards, the stresses as well as the rewards. Yes, I give it as many stars as there are in the sky! DWD

I found this work by Sandeep Jauhar to be quite in insightful description of what the world of internship actually entails. What I find brilliantly done is the keen use of language to constantly push forward a sense of dismissal of patients, yet a odd desire to continue. Throughout the course of this work, Jauhar is incredibly hesitant of the idea of medicine in the first place, yet reluctantly decides to push forward over all odds. There are times when you not only know, but feel, as though Jauhar doesn't want to be in the hospital, don't want to talk to patients, doesn't want anything to do with medicine in the first place. I suppose that's the impact of working in a hospital for more than 24 hours at a time. Occasionally I would find myself reproaching Jauhar for his standoffish manner, which is somewhat of a theme of this novel. It seems as though he occasionally doesn't care for patients, but just wants to get the job done and go home. But then I realized that part of what Jauhar is trying to get across is a taste of what a life as a doctor entails. I had assumed there would be some nights where sleep might be hard to come by, but I never thought it was as intense as is portrayed here. I commend Jauhar for a well-written description and await his future works.

If you are like me and wondering if the path to being a doctor is the right choice, then you might want to take the time to read through this one. The author gives you a first hand look at what it takes, and he doesn't hold back on details.

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"This book is about my residency [apprenticeship in medicine] at a prominent teaching hospital in New York City. The story goes up to the point when I decided to pursue a fellowship in cardiology, my specialty, and thus covers the most formative years of my education as a doctor.

For me it was a disillusioning time: I spent much of it in a state of crisis and doubt. I had trained as a physicist [the author has a Ph.D. in physics] before entering medical school, and ten years of uncertainty about my choice of profession came out all at once...

Because I had lived another, more sedate, professional life [as a physicist], the one I had to endure in the hospital was even more difficult to bear...For much of internship [the first year of residency], I felt buried--in a waking Hell under the weight of my own (and others') expectations...

I am [now] finished with my apprenticeship, and...now work as a cardiologist...For the most part, I am happy...But so much about medicine still troubles me...sometimes I'm still not sure cardiology was the right choice..."

The above is found in the introduction to this well-written book or memoir by Sandeep Jauhar, M.D., Ph.D. who now is the director of the Heart Failure Program at Long Island Jewish Medical Center. He also writes regularly for "The New York Times" (which got him into trouble during his residency).

If you're expecting to find phrases in this memoir such as "Medicine is the greatest profession", etc., you won't find them and are advised to look elsewhere. This is because this book is brutally honest. Jauhar tells it like it is and I got the sense he was not attempting to sugar-coat any of his narrative. As well, I totally believe that others being initiated into medicine go through the same struggles, questions, and observations as Jauhar (but for some reason are afraid to admit them).

Here are a few sentences and phrases that caught my eye:

(1) A lawyer from risk management, the department that defended the hospital against lawsuits, informed us that at some point in our careers every one of us was likely to be sued, and that we could even be sued during residency.
(2) "It's strange that all week [this was intern orientation week] they've hardly mentioned the patients...These are the people we're going to be learning on. It's like they're already invisible."
(3) But as with most of what I learned during then first two years of medical school, I had forgotten it.

(4) It's almost criminal the callousness with which we [that is, doctors] treat some of our patients.
(5) We performed our [medical] interventions [on patients] with such confidence, such arrogance, but most of the time there was no way of predicting whether we were doing the right thing, or even a good thing.
(6) What is the point of all this? All the protocols, chemotherapy, the transplants--what is the point of it if, in the end, the sickest patients, the ones we were beholden to help, or at least not harm, were better off without us?

(7) The sentiments I had heard about neurologists seemed close enough to the mark. Master diagnosticians, they had depressingly little to offer their patients.
(8) I too was learning that deliberate half-truths are a part of a doctor's armamentarium.
(9) Even today, patients continue to be enrolled in experimental drug studies without proper consent, or under tacit intimidation.

(10) In the ICU, sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.
(11) Doctors make fun of patients for many reasons. Sometimes as a defence mechanism, and sometimes just because they can.
(12) In some ways, I probably ended up becoming the kind of doctor I never thought I'd be: impatient with alternative hypotheses, strongly wedded to the evidence-based paradigm, sometimes indifferent (hard-edged, emotionless), occasionally paternalistic.

Each chapter begins with an interesting quotation. Here's one of my favourites by Lewis Thomas:

"The great secret of doctors, known only to their wives, but still hidden from the public, is that most things get better by themselves; most things, in fact, are better in the morning."

Finally, there are notes in this book that contain very interesting information. Here's an example:

"Doctors are more likely than members of the general public to commit suicide...Only 22 percent of depressed medical students seek help. Only 42 percent of those who are considering suicide seek treatment."

In conclusion, in my opinion, this is the best book on becoming a doctor that I have ever read. There are two things that make it stand-out from the rest: (1) the excellent, intelligent writing and (2) its HONESTY.

(first published 2008; prologue; introduction; 3 parts or 21 chapters; main narrative 290 pages; notes; acknowledgements)

<<Stephen Pletko, London, Ontario, Canada>>

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Its a great book about residency years of every doctor. It tells about their constant struggle to cope with present health care system. Author tried to give his honest encounter of most of the things. I highly recommend this book for any one who is going into medicine or spouses of medical professionals.

Having just come off a big read (Eat, Pray, Love), I wasn't sure what to expect when I picked up and began reading Intern, I have not put it down since. This book is so much more than just a well written description of one man's medical internship. This book toggles the heart strings of anyone who's search for career, love or security has ever been tested. Jauhar brilliantly describes many, many life experiences that we can all relate to and I often found myself either laughing out loud or on the verge of tears. What a wonderful story, worthy of great praise. If the author doesn't give us another read, I may just have to read this again!

"Intern" is brilliantly written in the classical story telling style known to Dr. Jauhar. Being a night charge nurse for over 20 years in the CCU of a large teaching hospital in New York I can vividly picture the new house staff in Jauhar's writings of his CCU experience. His frankness and truthfulness is applauded. A must read!