Prognosis: Poor: One Doctor's Personal Account of the Beauty and the Perils of Modern Medical Training

by Frances Southwick, Phil Phelps (Foreword)

Prognosis: Poor is a poignant snapshot of one physician's medical training. Frances Southwick, D.O. explores the highs and lows (more often the lows) of the process of becoming a doctor. She delivers colorful detail inside the mind of one trainee, herself, through undergraduate school, medical school and residency. The book focuses most heavily on the capstone of family medicine training: three years of residency in a well-respected Pittsburgh hospital. Dr. Southwick courageously explores her most difficult moments of self-doubt and hopelessness, but wraps the text up with a chapter cataloguing current problems in the training process and how they might be remedied. This memoir highlights the problem of depression in physicians and physicians-in-training as a looming, large, current problem. Greg Gallik, D.O., Dr. Southwick's mentor and the medical director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's Family Health Center states: "Prognosis Poor shines a much needed light on medical training in the U.S. Frances Southwick somberly illustrates the intense demands placed on those who choose to devote their lives to improve the health of others while simultaneously forcing them to ignore their own. Dr. Southwick's memoir has triggered many similar memories of my own medical training and pointedly shows how little we have learned. She has succeeded in describing the idealistic driving force behind a student's desire to become a physician contrasted with the often painful reality of the process itself. It is my hope that this book will contribute to creating a more humane and supportive medical training experience for the next generation of young doctors."

176 pages, Paperback

First published October 10, 2015

About the author

​Dr. Southwick is an osteopathic family physician and nonfiction writer practicing family medicine with interest in osteopathic manipulative medicine, trauma, and substance use disorders in California's central valley.

By sharing their experiences, Dr. Southwick offers validation, hope and peace to those in similar circumstances.

Reviews

[James Banzer · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want a good snapshot of the ordeals of medical training, you should find this book to be just what the doctor ordered. Prognosis: Poor, by Doctor Frances Southwick provides an excellent snapshot, and much of the picture isn't good. Rigors of undergraduate school, medical school and residency are not for the faint of heart, and this up-close-and-personal look does examines the pitfalls.

If truth were fully known at the outset, many medical professionals doubtless would seek out another occupation before jumping into the fire. Very few careers require such arduous training. Southwick makes it clear that the work pushes those embarking on the journey to the limit, and sometimes beyond. It's also expensive. Students are faced with prospects of a possible career that will take many years of future perservance and hard work just to break even. There is uncertanty even amongst the brightest of students as to whether the career will ever materialize.

As a nice touch, Doctor Southwick offers a series of thoughts about how the educaton process for family doctors could be improved. She also provides some ideas that can be good takeaways for people embarking on a medical career. One of excellent idea is that any person considering a major lifestyle change should want it at least six months before making the move. Now that's common sense advice that can apply to many things life throws at us. provided me with a free review copy of this book.

I was provided a free review copy of this book thanks to Goodreads.

[Shauna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book for anyone who is considering medical school, enrolled in medical school, is now in residency following medical school...or anyone who goes to a doctor! With very few exceptions (i.e. The House of God by Samuel Shem and Intern Blues by Robert Marion) the subject matter has been largely avoided. Prognosis: Poor boldly presents information concerning the grueling experience of residency that has been acknowledged but never really understood in full force for those of us without personal experience in the medical field. Dr. Southwick deftly incorporates a modicum of humor in an otherwise grim and graphic picture of the reality of medical residency. She has written an interesting and readable account of her personal experience that seems to resonate with those who have gone before her.

Here is hoping a more humane medical residency can be created for our doctors and those of us who are treated by them.

[Jessica Mckay]

This book is a very thoughtful portrayal of residency. As a nurse this book gave me a realistic perspective of what the residents who I work with go through. A great read for anyone who works in a hospital, or with doctors.

[Aan Krida · Rating 5 out of 5]

I very enjoy this book. :) It give more perspective about humane and supportive medical training experience. Thank you very much Frances Southwick, D.O.