Reviews provided by Syndetics
Library Journal Review
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 (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publishers Weekly Review
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.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Most stories of medical internship begin with a young kid who knows from an early age that he or she wants to be a doctor. Not so Jauhar. Although it was his parents' dream that one day both their sons would become physicians, as a college student this young man's interests bounced from history to political science to journalism, law, and, ultimately, physics. So it came as no small surprise to him that, when he applied for admission to medical school, he was accepted. Thereafter, as an intern at New York Hospital, surprise seemed to sneak up on him repeatedly as he struggled with, first, the idealism 95 percent of med students possess, then with his own self-doubts. It seemed there were few days when he failed to ask himself whether medicine was the right choice. Indeed, what sets Jauhar's internship story apart from the norm is his candor about how he overcame this internal conflict to become, eventually, director of the Heart Failure Program at Long Island Jewish Medical Center.--Chavez, Donna Copyright 2007 Booklist
Kirkus Book Review
The author examines the challenging, arduous program of medical internship. Jauhar, the the director of the Heart Failure Program at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, chronicles in swift prose the often harrowing adventures he experienced as a medical intern. Born to a lab technician and a plant geneticist in a quaint southern California suburb, Jauhar whizzed through his schooling relatively unsure of a career path. After a fleeting interest in psychiatry, the author, while studying in Berkeley, warmed to the idea of following the footsteps of his brother Rajiv, a Manhattan doctor, even though he still considered a career in internal medicine "so bourgeois." His tremulous first year as a medical intern became traumatic as he wrestled with by-the-book protocol, the "unsavoriness" of ornery ICU patients (where "sometimes the cure is worse than the disease") and grueling rounds at the hospital's ward 10-North--all while harboring a particular queasiness around corpses and rectal procedures. Increasingly at the mercy of relentless fatigue and doctor-patient politics, Jauhar nearly resigned in his second year, but his confident bedside manner and steely resolve won out. The author also found time to romance fellow medical student Sonia, who eventually became his wife. Jauhar's candid account of his stressful journey is enlightening, educational and eye-opening. After ten successful years in the profession, the author dolefully admits that he is unfazed by the "small injustices" in hospitals today. Required reading for anyone seriously considering a career in medicine. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.