Synopses & Reviews
Intern is Sandeep Jauhars story of his days and nights in residency at a busy hospital in New York City, a trial that led him to question our every assumption about medical care today. Residencyand especially the first year, called internshipis legendary for its brutality. Working eighty hours or more per week, most new doctors spend their first year asking themselves why they wanted to be doctors in the first place.
Jauhars internship was even more harrowing than most: he switched from physics to medicine in order to follow a more humane callingonly to find that medicine put patients concerns last. He struggled to find a place among squadrons of cocky residents and doctors. He challenged the practices of the internship in The New York Times, attracting the suspicions of the medical bureaucracy. Then, suddenly stricken, he became a patient himselfand came to see that todays high-tech, high-pressure medicine can be a humane science after all.
Now a thriving cardiologist, Jauhar has all the qualities youd want in your own doctor: expertise, insight, a feel for the human factor, a sense of humor, and a keen awareness of the worries that we all have in common. His beautifully written memoir explains the inner workings of modern medicine with rare candor and insight. Sandeep Jauhar, MD, PhD, is the director of the Heart Failure Program at Long Island Jewish Medical Center. He writes regularly for The New York Times and The New England Journal of Medicine. He lives with his wife and their son in New York City. Intern is Sandeep Jauhars story of his residency at a busy hospital in New York City, a trial that led him to question every common assumption about medical care today. Residencyespecially the first year, called internshipis legendary for its brutality. Working eighty hours or more per week, most new doctors spend their first year asking themselves why they wanted to be doctors in the first place.
Jauhars internship was even more harrowing than most: he switched from physics to medicine in order to follow a more humane callingonly to find that medicine put patients concerns last. He struggled to find a place among squadrons of cocky residents and doctors. He challenged the practices of the internship in The New York Times, attracting the suspicions of the medical bureaucracy. Then, suddenly stricken, he became a patient himselfand came to see that todays high-tech, high-pressure medicine can be a humane science after all.
Now a cardiologist, Jauhar has all the qualities youd want in your own doctor: expertise, insight, compassion, a sense of humor, and a keen awareness of the worries that we all have in common. His memoir explains the inner workings of modern medicine with rare candor and insight. “Intern succeeds as an unusually transparent portrait of an imperfect human being trying to do his best at a tough job . . . In addition to telling Jauhars own story, Intern delivers a vivid portrait of the culture of a New York City hospital, with its demanding hierarchy and sometimes indifferent cruelty . . . The medical system ultimately wore down Jauhars most idealistic impulses, and yet allowed him to find a certain peace.”Vincent Lam, The New York Times Book Review
"[A] fine memoir of Jauhars training in a New York City hospital . . . Intern succeeds as an unusually transparent portrait of an imperfect human being trying to do his best at a tough job . . . The story he tells here is antiheroic, full of uncertainty, doubt and frank disgust . . . In addition to telling Jauhars own story, Intern delivers a vivid portrait of the culture of a New York City hospital, with its demanding hierarchy and sometimes indifferent cruelty. Evocative street sketches bring relief from the claustrophobic wards while echoing the medical inhumanity inside. Jauhar depicts a city rich in energy and youthful beauty, which manhandles its own citizens once illness renders them foul smelling and inarticulate . . . The medical system ultimately wore down Jauhars most idealistic impulses, and yet allowed him to find a certain peace. 'Medicine, I learned, is a good profession, not a perfect oneand there are many ways it could change for the better,' he writes. 'But most of its practitioners . . . were fundamentally good people trying to do good every day.'"Vincent Lam, The New York Times Book Review
"Brutally frank . . . Rarely has a more conflicted or unpromising candidate entered the field of medicine, and this mismatch gives Intern its offbeat appeal. There are many accounts of American medical training, but none related by a narrator quite so wobbly, introspective, crisis prone and fumbling . . . In a book filled with colorful medical anecdotes, Dr. Jauhar's own case stands out. Half the time it's not clear whether he should be treating others or others should be treating him, which does in fact happen when he develops a herniated disc midway through his training, complicated by a deep depression associated with a rolling existential crisis. The inside look at the workings of the medical internship system is fascinating, but it cannot compete with Dr. Jauhar's own psychological adventure, a quasireligious journey from agnosticism to robust faith, with occasional dips into outright atheism."William Grimes, The New York Times
"Interns are the overburdened apprentices of the medical profession, and alas, the people they sharpen their skills upon are us. 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 an excellent, well-written book in which Sandeep Janhar describes his first 2 years of internship and residency in internal medicine at New York hospital (now New York-Presbyterian Hospital), a prestigious academic medical center in New York City. On one level, the book may be viewed simply as a memoir of one person's journey through the challenging and demanding apprenticeship that is necessary to complete training. Janhar describes his own unique journey from graduate work in physics to medical school, his ambivalence about his decision, and his struggles with his family during this process. But the majority portion of the book is devoted to a compelling description of the difficult and formative years of his internship and residency. For those of us long past residency training, Janhar captures vividly the uncertainty, fear, and extreme exhaustion that dominates the experience for most . . . Intern is more than simple a reminiscence of a difficult time, however. As Janhar describes his experiences, he provides a window into the world of the resident that can give us important insights into the difficulties of this training and the ways in which it can be unsafe and dehumanizing. Much of what Janhar describes is the inevitable product of assuming an enormous amount of responsibility at a time of relative inexperience and youth. The hours are long, and the work is grueling. He recounts the harrowing experience of being a night float at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where he is responsible for dozens of severely ill patient
Review
“In Jauhars 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 physicians 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 “Jauhars 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 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 doctors 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 doctors 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
Synopsis
Intern is Dr. Sandeep Jauhars 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. Residency—and especially its first year, the internship—is legendary for its brutality, and Jauhars experience was even more harrowing than most. He switched from physics to medicine in order to follow a more humane calling—only to find that his new profession often had little regard for patients concerns. He struggled to find a place among squadrons of cocky residents and doctors. He challenged the practices of the internship in
The New York Times, attracting the suspicions of the medical bureaucracy. Then, suddenly stricken, he became a patient himself—and came to see that todays high-tech, high-pressure medicine can be a humane science after all. Jauhars beautifully written memoir explains the inner workings of modern medicine with rare candor and insight.
Synopsis
Intern is Sandeep Jauhars story of his days and nights in residency at a busy hospital in New York City, a trial that led him to question our every assumption about medical care today. Residencyand especially the first year, called internshipis legendary for its brutality. Working eighty hours or more per week, most new doctors spend their first year asking themselves why they wanted to be doctors in the first place.
Jauhars internship was even more harrowing than most: he switched from physics to medicine in order to follow a more humane callingonly to find that medicine put patients concerns last. He struggled to find a place among squadrons of cocky residents and doctors. He challenged the practices of the internship in The New York Times, attracting the suspicions of the medical bureaucracy. Then, suddenly stricken, he became a patient himselfand came to see that todays high-tech, high-pressure medicine can be a humane science after all.
Now a thriving cardiologist, Jauhar has all the qualities youd want in your own doctor: expertise, insight, a feel for the human factor, a sense of humor, and a keen awareness of the worries that we all have in common. His beautifully written memoir explains the inner workings of modern medicine with rare candor and insight. Sandeep Jauhar, MD, PhD, is the director of the Heart Failure Program at Long Island Jewish Medical Center. He writes regularly for The New York Times and The New England Journal of Medicine. He lives with his wife and their son in New York City. Intern is Sandeep Jauhars story of his residency at a busy hospital in New York City, a trial that led him to question every common assumption about medical care today. Residencyespecially the first year, called internshipis legendary for its brutality. Working eighty hours or more per week, most new doctors spend their first year asking themselves why they wanted to be doctors in the first place.
Jauhars internship was even more harrowing than most: he switched from physics to medicine in order to follow a more humane callingonly to find that medicine put patients concerns last. He struggled to find a place among squadrons of cocky residents and doctors. He challenged the practices of the internship in The New York Times, attracting the suspicions of the medical bureaucracy. Then, suddenly stricken, he became a patient himselfand came to see that todays high-tech, high-pressure medicine can be a humane science after all.
Now a cardiologist, Jauhar has all the qualities youd want in your own doctor: expertise, insight, compassion, a sense of humor, and a keen awareness of the worries that we all have in common. His memoir explains the inner workings of modern medicine with rare candor and insight. “Intern succeeds as an unusually transparent portrait of an imperfect human being trying to do his best at a tough job . . . In addition to telling Jauhars own story, Intern delivers a vivid portrait of the culture of a New York City hospital, with its demanding hierarchy and sometimes indifferent cruelty . . . The medical system ultimately wore down Jauhars most idealistic impulses, and yet allowed him to find a certain peace.”Vincent Lam, The New York Times Book Review
"[A] fine memoir of Jauhars training in a New York City hospital . . . Intern succeeds as an unusually transparent portrait of an imperfect human being trying to do his best at a tough job . . . The story he tells here is antiheroic, full of uncertainty, doubt and frank disgust . . . In addition to telling Jauhars own story, Intern delivers a vivid portrait of the culture of a New York City hospital, with its demanding hierarchy and sometimes indifferent cruelty. Evocative street sketches bring relief from the claustrophobic wards while echoing the medical inhumanity inside. Jauhar depicts a city rich in energy and youthful beauty, which manhandles its own citizens once illness renders them foul smelling and inarticulate . . . The medical system ultimately wore down Jauhars most idealistic impulses, and yet allowed him to find a certain peace. 'Medicine, I learned, is a good profession, not a perfect oneand there are many ways it could change for the better,' he writes. 'But most of its practitioners . . . were fundamentally good people trying to do good every day.'"Vincent Lam, The New York Times Book Review
"Brutally frank . . . Rarely has a more conflicted or unpromising candidate entered the field of medicine, and this mismatch gives Intern its offbeat appeal. There are many accounts of American medical training, but none related by a narrator quite so wobbly, introspective, crisis prone and fumbling . . . In a book filled with colorful medical anecdotes, Dr. Jauhar's own case stands out. Half the time it's not clear whether he should be treating others or others should be treating him, which does in fact happen when he develops a herniated disc midway through his training, complicated by a deep depression associated with a rolling existential crisis. The inside look at the workings of the medical internship system is fascinating, but it cannot compete with Dr. Jauhar's own psychological adventure, a quasireligious journey from agnosticism to robust faith, with occasional dips into outright atheism."William Grimes, The New York Times
"Interns are the overburdened apprentices of the medical profession, and alas, the people they sharpen their skills upon are us. 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 an excellent, well-written book in which Sandeep Janhar describes his first 2 years of internship and residency in internal medicine at New York hospital (now New York-Presbyterian Hospital), a prestigious academic medical center in New York City. On one level, the book may be viewed simply as a memoir of one person's journey through the challenging and demanding apprenticeship that is necessary to complete training. Janhar describes his own unique journey from graduate work in physics to medical school, his ambivalence about his decision, and his struggles with his family during this process. But the majority portion of the book is devoted to a compelling description of the difficult and formative years of his internship and residency. For those of us long past residency training, Janhar captures vividly the uncertainty, fear, and extreme exhaustion that dominates the experience for most . . . Intern is more than simple a reminiscence of a difficult time, however. As Janhar describes his experiences, he provides a window into the world of the resident that can give us important insights into the difficulties of this training and the ways in which it can be unsafe and dehumanizing. Much of what Janhar describes is the inevitable product of assuming an enormous amount of responsibility at a time of relative inexperience and youth. The hours are long, and the work is grueling. He recounts the harrowing experience of being a night float at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where he is responsible for dozens of severely ill patient
About the Author
Sandeep Jauhar, MD, PhD, is the director of the Heart Failure Program at Long Island Jewish Medical Center. He writes regularly for The New York Times and The New England Journal of Medicine. He lives with his wife and their son in New York City.