Becoming a Doctor: From Student to Specialist, Doctor-Writers Share Their Experiences

by Lee Gutkind (Editor)

Overview

“As wise as it is well written. . . . A sustaining work of art.” —Linda Elisabeth Beattie, Courier-Journal

In this inspired anthology, doctors relate true stories from their professional lives, capturing disillusionments and triumphs encountered along the way. Essays by such distinguished writers as Peter D. Kramer, Kay Redfield Jamison, Danielle Ofri, Robert Coles, Lauren Slater, Sandeep Jauhar, and Perri Klass create a vivid mural of the medical world, from a student’s uneasy first encounter with a cadaver to a veteran doctor’s memories of the emotionally charged days and nights of residency.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393334555
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	07/11/2011
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Lee Gutkind is the founder and editor of the literary journal Creative Nonfiction and a pioneer in the field of narrative nonfiction. Gutkind is also the editor of In Fact and Becoming a Doctor, the author of Almost Human, and has written books about baseball, health care, travel, and technology. A Distinguished Writer in Residence at Arizona State University, he lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Tempe, Arizona.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Writing About Doctors Lee Gutkind vii

Acknowledgments xi

Intern Sayantani DasGupta 1

Pas de Deux Danielle Ofri 9

First in My Class Chris Stookey 25

The Patient Narrative Perri Klass 39

The Family Room Teri Reynolds 51

On Not Becoming Doctor Kay Redfield Jamison 59

Magic Hands Thomas C. Gibbs 69

On Working with Cadavers Marion Bishop 79

Going to Abilene Elissa Ely 97

Sine Qua Non Peter D. Kramer 103

The Doctor in Middle Age Charles Bardes 111

A Doctor of None Zaldy S. Tan 125

Good Intentions Sandeep Jauhar 135

En Route Abigail Zuger 143

A Fire, Deliberately Set Peggy Sarjeant 153

Thirty Minutes Closer Leah E. Mintz 171

The Cleverest Doctor Clint Morehead 181

A Manner of Being Robert Coles 197

Knock Knock Lauren Slater 203

Contributor Notes 223

Editorial Reviews

It seems unjust that a person should be endowed with a mind that can craft beautiful sentences and master all the information needed to graduate from medical school. But that’s the case with many of the physician writers in Becoming a Doctor.”

Rachel Saslow - Washington Post

Here’s the invaluable insight patients so often miss from doctors —revelations that expose the person underneath the white coat as not just capable but vulnerable and all too human. Gutkind, founder of the journal Creative Nonfiction and editor of numerous volumes of creative nonfiction, selects 19 men and women who bravely, and often lyrically, demonstrate that they are “ordinary people engaged in an extraordinary profession.” Perri Klass explains why she tries to teach her medical students that “clinical medicine is all about stories.” Zaldy S. Tan writes of how helping a beloved and very ill grandmother cured him of the smugness residents feel toward elderly patients. And Abigail Zuger discovered an unruly, demanding patient was suddenly compliant “all because I once treated her like a person, not a patient.” In their stories, each physician confirms one simple, powerful truth, as noted by Pulitzer Prize–winner Robert Coles: it is “important to be a scientist who knows how to listen, how to think, and how to express himself as clearly as possible.” (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Gutkind (writing, Arizona State Univ.) has amassed a collection of essays by doctors who are also writers, e.g., Perri Klass, Danielle Ofri, and Sandeep Jauhar. These and others give readers a glimpse into the lives of medical professionals at various stages of their career. In one story, first-year resident Chris Stookey faces malpractice and must come to terms with how he could be sued by a patient whom he saw only briefly. In another, pediatric primary-care doctor Klass describes her work teaching first-year medical students how to interact with and interview patients so they can learn what a remarkable privilege it is to gain access into people's lives. Kay Jamison describes how being diagnosed with bipolar disorder changed her career path from becoming a doctor to finding a new interest in psychology. VERDICT Medical students and medical professionals will enjoy these perspectives on their profession; they will likely encounter or have encountered many of the obstacles narrated.—Dana Ladd, Community Health Education Ctr., Virginia Commonwealth Univ. Libs. & Virginia Commonwealth Univ. Health Syst., Richmond

Library Journal

Here, some of the best-known names in medical writing are joined by powerful new voices to help elucidate the mysterious and grueling transformation from non-doctor to doctor. Readers will gain insight into both the exuberance and disillusionment of physicians-in-training. A remarkable collection.

Christine Montross