What do you think?
Rate this book
Blind Man's Marathon: A Journey Through the Third Year of Medical School
What does it feel like to be a medical student during the third year -- the first "true" year of medical school, when eager-eyed but utterly ignorant apprentice physicians are released from the library and unleashed on unsuspecting patients? How does one manage to appear even remotely competent after dropping a ten-pound ovarian tumor on the floor? Steven Hatch seeks to explain these questions, providing readers with the texture of this crucial period for a nascent physician.
306 pages, Paperback
First published March 6, 2006
24 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 3, 2020
I took my friend Dr. Steven Hatch aka Billy Rubin on vacation with me and he told me all about the dreaded third year of medical school. Well, actually I didn't take him; instead, I took the book he wrote and gave to us in 2005. Sorry, it took me so long to read it!
Better than those vapid emergency rooms shows packed with bullet wounds, child abuse, and doctor-to-doctor romance, Dr. Hatch's book documents the ridiculous hours and condescending treatment of a third-year and opens a window into the fascinating but grotesque smorgasbord of patients and conditions that doctors of all stripes deal with daily.
We assist in surgery with blood spurting all over the place. We stop in psychiatry where no one is really able to help anyone. We deliver babies with gynecologists. We chat with chipper 280 pack-year smokers in the VA. We take so many high-powered, high-stakes tests. We write when we should be studying. We stay up all night again and again. We catch a very few winks in horribly cramped hospital corners when we can and we try to hold the surgical camera steady on not enough sleep while the surgeon grills us with questions and lambasts us for imperfections. We think and think and think about what specialty best matches our skills and interests. We watch people die and can do nothing to stop it. Oh, and by the way, we try to stay married, sneaking away to see our partner in our rare hours off.
This book should be required reading for anyone who thinks they might want to go to medical school. And for anyone who is kinda curious about what their doctor's experience REALLY was.
As in person, Steven is large and in charge. He is a man with tastes and opinions and he ain't holding back. At times hilarious and at other times infuriating, I strongly recommend Blind Man's Marathon.
Better than those vapid emergency rooms shows packed with bullet wounds, child abuse, and doctor-to-doctor romance, Dr. Hatch's book documents the ridiculous hours and condescending treatment of a third-year and opens a window into the fascinating but grotesque smorgasbord of patients and conditions that doctors of all stripes deal with daily.
We assist in surgery with blood spurting all over the place. We stop in psychiatry where no one is really able to help anyone. We deliver babies with gynecologists. We chat with chipper 280 pack-year smokers in the VA. We take so many high-powered, high-stakes tests. We write when we should be studying. We stay up all night again and again. We catch a very few winks in horribly cramped hospital corners when we can and we try to hold the surgical camera steady on not enough sleep while the surgeon grills us with questions and lambasts us for imperfections. We think and think and think about what specialty best matches our skills and interests. We watch people die and can do nothing to stop it. Oh, and by the way, we try to stay married, sneaking away to see our partner in our rare hours off.
This book should be required reading for anyone who thinks they might want to go to medical school. And for anyone who is kinda curious about what their doctor's experience REALLY was.
As in person, Steven is large and in charge. He is a man with tastes and opinions and he ain't holding back. At times hilarious and at other times infuriating, I strongly recommend Blind Man's Marathon.
September 30, 2007
I have to put in a plug for this book, as it is written by a good friend and medical school classmate-in spite of this, it remains a well written view of what the third year of medical school can feel like, for anyone who has ever been curious. (Plus, it is always interesting to see a version of yourself in print, and to see how your perceptions of events differ from that of your friends...)
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews