Intern: A Doctor’s Initiation (2007) (PDF) by Sandeep Jauhar

Description

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

Intern is Dr. Sandeep Jauhar’s story of his days and nights in residency at a busy hospital in New York City, a trial that led him to question his every assumption about medical care today.

User’s Reviews

From Publishers Weekly 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 © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. 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 valuable record of our initiation.” —Sanjay Gupta, CNN medical correspondent and author of Chasing Life“Intern will resonate not only with doctors, but with anyone who has struggled with the grand question: ‘what should I do with my life?’ In a voice of profound honesty and intelligence, Sandeep Jauhar gives us an insider’s look at the medical profession, and also a dramatic account of the psychological challenges of early adulthood.” —Akhil Sharma, author of An Obedient Father“Told of here is a time of travail and testing—a doctor’s initiation into the trials of a demanding yet hauntingly affirming profession—all conveyed by a skilled, knowing writer whose words summon memories of his two great predecessors, Dr. Anton Chekhov and Dr. William Carlos Williams: a noble lineage to which this young doctor’s mind, heart, and soul entitle him to belong.” — Robert Coles”Intern is not just a gripping tale of becoming a doctor. It’s also a courageous critique, a saga of an immigrant family living (at times a little uneasily) the American dream, and even a love story. A great read and a valuable addition to the literature–and I use the word advisedly–of medical training.” –Melvin Konner, M.D. Ph.D., author of Becoming a Doctor “In this era when medical shows abound on TV, Jauhar demonstrates the power of the written word in the hands of a sensitive, thoughtful observer and an experienced, gifted writer. Intern is a compelling, accurate and heartfelt chronicle of what that year is really like. It will be the standard by which future such memoirs will be judged.”–Abraham Verghese, author of My Own Country and The Tennis Partner –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Reviews from Amazon users, collected at the time the book is getting published. It can be related to shiping or paper quality instead of the book content:

⭐ This is an important book and one that I only recently discovered after the passing of the much-respected Chief of Invasive Cardiology at Oakland’s Highland General Hospital (Dr. Walter Stullman). That event prompted me to reflect on my own years at Highland in the cath lab, back in the late 70s/early 80s, and led to my discovery of Dr. Sandeep Jauhar’s very insightful recounting of his own formative years as an intern and resident. In his book, Jauhar reflects on the experiences that led to his choice of cardiology as a specialty, and anyone who has followed that incredibly arduous path from medical school to professional practice will experience many moments of satori in its pages. Dr. Juhar lucidly describes the challenges and ordeals awaiting those who choose medicine as a profession, but just as importantly he reflects upon the underlying ethical and moral humanity that is a requisite underpinning in the diagnosis and treatment of human afflictions. This is a book that belongs on the reference shelf of anyone involved with medicine today (at any level), as our modern scientific and technological prowess threatens to overwhelm our humane intuitions and feelings. Dr. Jauhar’s academic background (he holds a PhD in physics as well as credentials in journalism) has enabled him to put a unique and valuable personal perspective on his experiences as a young doctor that is both refreshing and extraordinary. [Among his other published works is another I would strongly recommend: ‘The Heart: A History’]. I think you will enjoy this book as I did, since it’s…if you’ll pardon the jest…’straight from the heart!’

⭐ For me, reading this memoir was an experience of intense immersion in the author’s psyche as he navigates the process of development psychologists call identity formation. He spends an unusually long time in the “moratorium” phase of that process, in which there’s an active but uncommitted exploration of differing personal values and roles. He’s an apt observer of his inner world, so his memoir, though titled “Intern,” is really less another general story about the rigors of becoming a doctor and more a very individual narrative of coming of age. As the main character of his story, he’s a brilliant and brooding young man defying his family’s expectations that he’ll follow in his older brother’s footsteps to become a doctor (preferably a prestigious and highly paid specialist) by instead pursuing postgraduate studies in theoretical physics (but not before detours to get accepted by all the best law schools and travels to undertake challenging volunteer work abroad). In spite of his self-assessment that he isn’t quite brilliant enough to do theoretical physics, he goes on to write a dissertation on quantum dots. But his restlessness doesn’t abate. He suffers angst and anomie from feeling more oriented to the random quantum than to the orderly classical world. It’s a crisis of meaning and of personal significance. He wants to stop thinking and start acting. So he finally makes his parents happy by going to medical school … and (as written in the stars at his birth) on to a crisis of self-confrontation in his internship, a decidedly nonacademic environment where he immediately senses he doesn’t fit in and feels overwhelmed by having to act without thinking.He is a very good writer. He has a wonderful way of introducing simple concepts from physics as metaphoric bridges to help himself (and his readers) creatively reconceptualize a personal or medical problem so that he (we) can understand it and/or find solutions (sometimes the solution is just the understanding). There is no real end to a memoir–a self-reflective person will go on learning from experience and growing–but I doubt the core traits that make this hero of his own story (as we all are) turn inward, introspect, brood, and challenge himself again and again will let him rest for very long.

⭐ Wow awesome book! I re-lived my own internship all over again. Got to round with Dr Jauhar in the icu and the medical floors, at morning report, at attending rounds..felt like i was on the hot seat again getting pimped. So relatable on so many levels for those who went thru the R1 year. The cases he describes too brought so much humanity to the bedside, all the while trying to learn what only can be learned by doing (see one, do one, teach one?). The ward teams, nurses, hospital politics, uncertainty, sleepless nights, the do first, ask questions later of intern survivorship..its all there. And i even enjoyed the different hospitals and cities he took us to throughout the book. At Cal berkeley, where Dr Jauhar finished a PhD in physics prior to his medical internship, i found myself driving around telegraph hill and up and around the campus towards the Lawrence Berkeley labs and down past international house just to get a feel for what he was leaving behind. I read up on New York presbyterian , Memorial Sloan, and Bellevue where he worked at. And in the later chapters of the book “walked” up from the Bellevue campus towards the upper east side retracing his thoughts and reflections after internship, and mine as well. Just a great read and tour de force of all that is experienced in the training of a new doctor.

⭐ An interesting take on this MD’s internship. You can only learn so much in a book and then you have to practice on patients. Sandeep survived and even went on to become a cardiologist. More practice and opportunities for learning.Medicine is a process of deduction, and experience. The part that gets me is the inhumanity of internship, the long hours without sleep, the pecking order of the teaching staff; how is one supposed to learn to be empathetic in an atmosphere that is grueling, and fraught with the possibility of errors. This training is part of the “old boy’s club” where the older physicians want to make the younger ones suffer like they did. This is no longer the dark ages, and I wouldn’t want someone taking care of me who has a hard time thinking straight!

⭐ This is a book I would definitely recommend. I’m not sure if the accounts in this book are composites or how he gets around revealing the intimate details, but they are really captivating. And what makes the book more interesting (besides his good writing– he was published in the New York Times, after all!), is his willingness to criticize himself and reveal his vulnerabilities. This book seems to really portray a true image of what it is like to become a doctor, from the point of view of the trenches.

⭐ This book is a great depicition of the feelings in the mind of a fearful medical student. Acting with confidence in poise while riddled with doubt. What makes this book great is the authors descriptions of personal anxiety. Dr. Janhar was open and candid about his internal feelings. I was able to relate my own personal fears, doubts and anxiety to the author. This book shows the literal selfless sacrifice of those in the personal pursuit of medicine. As well as yourself it is also cited that others around you suffer your sacrifice as well. Dr. Janhar’s book should be read by anyone who wants to go in the field of medicine. Overall great book, I look forward to another from him in the future.

⭐ This book did me a ton of good as I was transitioning out of school and into my profession, I buy it for every new grad that I know so that they can get the same heads up. By addressing his shortcomings and feelings of inadequacy Dr Jauhar put his voice behind one of the toughest things for us type A medical professionals to come to terms with.

⭐ I have read several accounts of a doctor’s key training and have been to lectures about it. This is a very sincere and truthful story of how hard it is for a new physician to care for patients in a big city and always do the right thing. I read it two years ago and still think about it when I hear about someone in a hospital emergency.

⭐ As a fourth year medical student beginning an Internal Med residency this summer, I cherished every page of this book…great literary skills and story telling technique…good to know I’m not alone in all the anxiety and excitement that comes along with internship…also very well written so that non-medicine people can read and understand the entire narration…had my mom read the book (which she did in 5 days) and now its with my girlfriend! Explained all the emotions we will/have experienced going forward better than I ever could!

⭐ In this excellent book, Sandeep Jauhar, who trained as a physicist, but decided to become a doctor, shows us his experiences in medical school and his doubts that he could ever become a good doctor. He tells about some of the patients he saw and how he sometimes felt that he couldn’t spend enough time with them. He believes that some changes could be made to the practice of medicine, including putting more emphasis on training family practitioners. Specialists make more money, but for patients, the system can be fragmented and duplicative, when seeing many different doctors. This book has descriptions of hospital situations as well as Dr. Jauhar’s feelings and opinions on what goes on in the medical field-very engrossing.

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