Med School [Paperback]

Clifton K. Meador (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2003

Fifty years before Resident Life became a reality television show on The Learning Channel, Clifton Meador lived, breathed, and sometimes slept the life of a med student at Vanderbilt University. Dr. Meador recalls those days in a fascinating and entertaining memoir, packed with stories, vignettes, and experiences that capture a time and place gone by. Med School celebrates the joy of learning, the excitement of medical discovery, and the adverture of caring for patients in a setting that helped shape modern medicine. While Med School will resonate with medical practitioners, its sheer charm will appeal to anyone who enjoys a wonderfully told story.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Clifton Meador has written a poignant, funny, authentic account—a "must read" for doctors of all ages. -- Steve Bergman, M.D., (a.k.a. Samuel Shem), Author of House of God and Mount Misery

If you went to med school and you want some real nostalgic belly laughs, this is the book for you. -- George Lundberg, M.D., Former Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the American Medical Association

Students of all kinds will see themselves...on these pages. And they will laugh and laugh, and learn and learn. -- Steven G. Gabbe, M.D., Dean, School of Medicine, Vanderbilt University Medical Center

About the Author

Clifton K. Meador graduated from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in 1955, sharing the Founder's Medal for top scholastic honors with a classmate, Vernon Reynolds. Dr. Tinsley Harrison, then-outgoing chairman of medicine at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, recruited him to the faculty in Birmingham. Dr. Meador directed the N.I.H. Clinical Research Center at the university for six years, advanced to professor of medicine, and served as dean of the School of Medicine at the University of Alabama in Birmingham from 1968 to 1973.

In 1973 Dr. Meador returned to Vanderbilt to join the full-time faculty as professor of medicine and to establish the Vanderbilt teaching service in medicine at Saint Thomas Hospital. Dr. Meador also served as chief medical officer of the hospital until 1998, when he became the executive director of the newly formed Meharry-Vanderbilt Alliance. He is now professor of medicine at both medical schools and continues to direct the programs of the alliance.

Dr. Meador has published extensively in the medical literature; he is perhaps best known for "The Art and Science of Nondisease" and "The Last Well Person," both published in the New England Journal of Medicine, and "A Lament for Invalids," published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The articles are satiric treatments of the excesses of medical practice. He is the author of seven books, including the bestselling medical book, A Little Book of Doctors' Rules.

Dr. Meador lives in Nashville with his wife, Kathleen. He has seven children and seven grandchildren.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Hillsboro Press (October 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1577363116
• ISBN-13: 978-1577363118
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #969,625 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Superb Insight into Life and Education of a Medical Student, November 15, 2003

By 

Betty Ruth Speir "amsac" (Point Clear, AL United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Med School (Paperback)

In reading this enthralling book, one is taken step by step through the education and life of a medical student and young doctor. You will laugh and you will cry. This is an exciting and entertaining memoir. It is filled with true stories, vignettes and experiences that will make you understand how doctors are created and why they are like they are. He pays tribute to his patients, as well as, his professors as eminent teachers. Dr. Meador's compassion and extraordinary sense of humor combine to give him an inimitable voice...one that leads you rapidly through the book... When you finish you wish it had not ended so soon.....

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Med School Tells it Like it Was, April 22, 2004

By 

george d lundberg (Los Gatos, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Med School (Paperback)

I love this little book. Of course the fact that I was in med school in Birmingham, AL about the same time author Meador was in med school in Nashville, TN, probably has a lot to do with that. Although some of the content is historical, and some frankly hysterically funny, this is how the American doctors of the past 50 years were trained. It behooves patients to try to understand this as they work on their own patient-physician relationships. Yes, medicine has changed a lot, but Meador's tales suggest that med school, in essence, may not have changed much. We have published an excerpt chapter of Med School at www.medscape.com/viewarticle/473668, if the Amazon reader wants to taste before buying.

5.0 out of 5 stars Why wouldn't you read a Clifton Meador MD book?, February 25, 2010

By 

Susan W. Hawn (GA, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Med School (Paperback)

If medicine is your avocation as well as your vocation, you read books like this. And his are always pleasant.