Jauhar recounts his days and nights in residency at a busy hospital in New York City, a trial that led him to question the quality of medical care today. His beautifully written memoir explains that modern medicine can be a humane science after all.

Reviews

Jauhar, a cardiologist who directs the Heart Failure Program at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, completed his internship a decade ago, but still remembers his confusing, tumultuous medical apprenticeship at the prestigious New York Hospital "the way soldiers remember war." The son of an embittered immigrant plant geneticist who found the American university tenure system racist, Jauhar dithered over career choices and completed a doctorate in physics before embarking on medicine. Jauhar feels responsible when he botches the blood pressure check on a patient who later dies during an aortic dissection and when he misses the high blood sodium level of a man who then suffers irreversible brain damage. He wonders if he and his colleagues have discriminated against a cardiac patient because of his weight, and helps an advanced cancer patient's wife decide against the futile insertion of a breathing tube. As his internship progresses, he romances his future wife (an affair he describes with the passion of one buying a used car); cracks under self-doubt and the expectations of his traditional Indian family, and suffers a serious depression. He regrets that as a doctor he is sometimes impatient, emotionless and paternalistic. Although Jauhar carefully elucidates complex medical terminology for lay readers, his thoughtful, valuable memoir will be most relevant to medical students and interns experiencing similar crises. (Jan.) Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.

Cardiologist Jauhar, a regular writer for the New York Times and the New England Journal of Medicine, chronicles his first year in medical residency as an intern. Having resisted his family's attempts to persuade him to pursue a career in medicine, Jauhar instead pursues a Ph.D. in physics. But after a friend is diagnosed with the autoimmune disease lupus, Jauhar realizes his chosen major would enable him to have very little impact on people's lives. He decides instead to enter medical school, and upon graduation begins a residency program in a New York hospital. During most of his residency, however, Jauhar wavers in his decision to become a medical doctor. His honest and vivid account of the grueling life of a resident struggling through his first year as a doctor allows readers to see medicine from the point of view of someone wrestling with his career choice. By the end, Jauhar becomes more confident, assimilating into his role as a doctor, and developing a passion for his career in medicine-especially after becoming a patient himself. A well-written medical memoir recommended for most libraries.-Dana Ladd, Community Health Education Ctr., Richmond, VA Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information.

"In Jauhar's wise memoir of his two-year ordeal of doubt and sleep deprivation at a New York hospital, he takes readers to the heart of every young physician's hardest test: to become a doctor yet remain a human being."--"Time " "Brutally frank . . . The inside look at the workings of the medical internship system is fascinating." --William Grimes, " The New York Times " "Jauhar's stories are timeless [and] interesting." --Barron H. Lerner, "The Washington Post " "A vivid portrait of the culture of a New York City hospital, with its demanding hierarchy and sometimes indifferent cruelty." --Vincent Lam, " The New York Times Book Review "

"Very few books can make you laugh and cry at the same time. This is one of them. Sandeep reveals himself in this book as he takes us on a wondrous journey through one of the most difficult years of his life. It is mandatory reading for anyone who has been even the slightest bit curious about how a doctor gets trained, and for physicians, it is a valu