Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6602 in Books
• Published on: 1998-02-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 397 pages

Synopsis
The medical hierarchy of "The House of God" is like a pyramid - a lot at the bottom and one at the top. Roy Basch, a Rhodes scholar, thinks differently, until he meets Hyper Hooper, out to win the most post-mortems of the year award, or Molly, the nurse with the crash helmet.

About the Author
Samuel Shem(Md)
Sameul Shem (Stephen Bergman M.D.) graduated magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard College and earned a Ph.D in physiology from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He graduated from Harvard Medical School. He is the author of the novels The House of God, Mount Misery and Fine, and seven plays, including, with Janet Surrey, Bill W. and Dr. Bob. He is on the faculty of Harvard Medical School and the Stone Centre, Wellesley College. He lives near Boston with his wife and daughter.

Customer Reviews

Prospective medical students must read
A sadistic yet hilarious take on life as a doctor. it made me want to study medicine even more!!!

please please please buy!
A fantastic read for any doctors out there who remember what it was like being a house officer/intern. Surprisingly close to real life in the UK too!! For those who don't work in the medical sphere - still a great read and almost certainly a bit of an eye opener.

An Account of Discovering The Meaning of Doctorhood
Samuel Shem's take on the first year of being a Doctor, the internship, is an excellent account of the destruction of the ideology of Medicine and the gradual erosion of innocence within this context.

Basch, Shem's protagonist is introduced to the daily practicalities of being an Intern, by The Fat Man who kicks Basch's lofty ideals out from under him, giving him the cynical know-how to survive the ordeal. Basch turns from being shocked at such disrespect, to eventualy embracing it and losing his own humanity.

Shem chronicles Basch's use of sex, humour, cynicism and finally denial as tools to survive the onslaught from the patients and the Institution's inane ethos of treating their patients to death. What struck resonance with myself was not only the connection with medicine (having been the equivalent of an intern myself) but the analogy (intended or not) with growing up and the loss of childhood belief and innocence. This belief is something that society maintains when it comes to medicine, a belief that everyone (or at least many) can be cured, and that Doctors can do it.

Basch's journey is that of discovering the true meaning of being a Doctor and rather than becoming permanently jaded and disillusioned, he finds the balance between reality and holding on to the origin of why he chose medicine as a career. This is an excellent read, evoking thought and reflection, truly a memorable book that I took something away from. I look forward to Shem's book on his experience within psychiatry.