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Intern: A Doctor's Initiation
"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 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.
Residency―and especially its first year, the internship―is legendary for its brutality, and Jauhar's 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 today's high-tech, high-pressure medicine can be a humane science after all.
Jauhar's beautifully written memoir explains the inner workings of modern medicine with rare candor and insight.
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.
Residency―and especially its first year, the internship―is legendary for its brutality, and Jauhar's 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 today's high-tech, high-pressure medicine can be a humane science after all.
Jauhar's beautifully written memoir explains the inner workings of modern medicine with rare candor and insight.
299 pages, Paperback
First published December 26, 2007
168 people are currently reading
6345 people want to read
About the author
Sandeep Jauhar
12 books220 followersSandeep Jauhar has written several bestselling books, all published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
"My Father’s Brain," his most recent book, is a memoir of his relationship with his father as he succumbed to dementia. In the book, Jauhar sets his father’s descent into Alzheimer’s alongside his own journey toward understanding his father’s disease. It was named by The New Yorker and Smithsonian magazine as one of the best books of 2023.
The book relates the complications that arise when family members must become caregivers. Though the conflicts are personal, they are also universal—conversations and conflicts that every family facing the mental erosion of an elder has. At the same time, the book explores everything from ancient conceptions of the mind to the most cutting-edge neurological―and bioethical―research. It delves into what happens in the brain as we age and our memory falters, how memory gives meaning to our lives, even as it changes with time, how dementia complicates our understanding of what it means to have a self — and what all this means for patients, their families, and society at large.
Jauhar's first book, "Intern: A Doctor's Initiation," was an international bestseller and was optioned by NBC for a dramatic television series.
His second book, "Doctored: The Disillusionment of an American Physician," was a New York Times bestseller and was named a New York Post Best Book of 2014.
"Heart: A History," his third book, was named a best book of 2018 by the Mail on Sunday, Science Friday, Zocalo Public Square, and the Los Angeles Public Library, and was the PBS NewsHour/New York Times book club pick for January 2019; it was also a finalist for the Wellcome Book Prize.
A practicing physician, Jauhar writes regularly for the opinion section of The New York Times. His TED Talk on the emotional heart was one of the ten most-watched TED Talks of 2019. To learn more about him and his work, visit his website at www.sandeepjauhar.com or follow him on social media.
"My Father’s Brain," his most recent book, is a memoir of his relationship with his father as he succumbed to dementia. In the book, Jauhar sets his father’s descent into Alzheimer’s alongside his own journey toward understanding his father’s disease. It was named by The New Yorker and Smithsonian magazine as one of the best books of 2023.
The book relates the complications that arise when family members must become caregivers. Though the conflicts are personal, they are also universal—conversations and conflicts that every family facing the mental erosion of an elder has. At the same time, the book explores everything from ancient conceptions of the mind to the most cutting-edge neurological―and bioethical―research. It delves into what happens in the brain as we age and our memory falters, how memory gives meaning to our lives, even as it changes with time, how dementia complicates our understanding of what it means to have a self — and what all this means for patients, their families, and society at large.
Jauhar's first book, "Intern: A Doctor's Initiation," was an international bestseller and was optioned by NBC for a dramatic television series.
His second book, "Doctored: The Disillusionment of an American Physician," was a New York Times bestseller and was named a New York Post Best Book of 2014.
"Heart: A History," his third book, was named a best book of 2018 by the Mail on Sunday, Science Friday, Zocalo Public Square, and the Los Angeles Public Library, and was the PBS NewsHour/New York Times book club pick for January 2019; it was also a finalist for the Wellcome Book Prize.
A practicing physician, Jauhar writes regularly for the opinion section of The New York Times. His TED Talk on the emotional heart was one of the ten most-watched TED Talks of 2019. To learn more about him and his work, visit his website at www.sandeepjauhar.com or follow him on social media.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 363 reviews
March 29, 2013
Dr. Jauhar seems like a pretty narcissistic douche. His personal career struggles, the difficulty he has in deciding what profession to pursue, and his moderate depression and ennui in the midst of stressful situations are, he will be surprised to hear, much less interesting than the anecdotes of the hospital patients under his care. His and his brother's (also a physician) douchiness are not unexpected given their parents' attitudes: get out of academia, where you will never be successful but will languish as an underpaid post-doc for decades (Jauhar got a PhD in physics before going into medicine); go into medicine, which will bring prestige upon you and us, and then go into cardiology, which will bestow greater prestige and wealth than internal medicine. Jauhar admits going into cardiology for these reasons, so points for being honest, I guess.
Nor does the medical profession as a whole come off well here. The message seems to be: if any crumb of kindness, understanding, or compassion gets dropped your way from a doctor, treasure it, for they are few and far between.
There's a weird, casual misogyny in the book, odd for someone only in his forties. Rachel is "a knockout blonde." Nancy is "a good-looking blonde." A nurse is stocky, with "a broad Filipino mug and a mop of ink black hair" and stale breath. Caitlin, "a very attractive brunette," "had great breasts." As she explained to him the ins and outs of his oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital. Does Caitlin like being referred to in this manner? After all, she must know by now. There aren't that many doctors who could have explained Dr. Jauhar's fellowship to him in the Sloan-Kettering cafeteria that day. Or perhaps she was a composite of all the other great-breasted women doctors at Sloan-Kettering. Dr. Jauhar writes about all these knockout blonds and great breasts right on the eve of getting engaged to his girlfriend Sonia. Dr. Jauhar is concerned about marrying Sonia, because Sonia too is a doctor, and he worries about a two-doctor marriage. But he finds comfort in a study that found that "women in dual-doctor marriages spent more time rearing children, more often arranged their work schedules to fulfill family responsibilities, worked fewer hours, and earned less money."
Three stars for the medical stories, one star for the douchiness.
April 14, 2019
“Intern: A Doctor’s Initiation” is at times shouting in your face with brutal “hot pink” honesty bringing back memories of me and my brother accidentally seeing a cadaver at Rio Hondo Hospital. This memory was similar to what made Dr. Jauhar vomit in-between patients. “Cookbook medicine” is the generic term he applies to the medical practice and not something he wishes to emulate. “Creare fabulis” and drones mimic.
“One thing I never thought seriously about was becoming a doctor. In fact, for most of my life, medicine was the last thing I wanted to do...Welcome, Doctor. Will you have a drink?”
---Sandeep Jauhar, MD
Given the suffering, we can deduce this doctor needs to be under a doctor’s care. During his internship Sandeep wobbles between being a depressed ascetic and an agnostic living in a hyperhidrotic world burdened with self-guilt. “When you didn’t know what you were doing...anything could happen.” Especially in the case of a patient pulling out a urinary catheter and then having to tap another patient's artery---for the first time.
Masochistic tread of bloody septic bare feet on sharp rusty nails is my description of this journey. Dr. Jauhar makes his rounds and finds the clandestine “schatz” in the wards. Going from physicist (having finished his doctoral dissertation on quantum dots) to physician and then on to writing for the prestigious New York Times. Absolute medicinal morphine in “Intern: A Doctor’s Initiation!” Brace yourself, buy and read.
“One thing I never thought seriously about was becoming a doctor. In fact, for most of my life, medicine was the last thing I wanted to do...Welcome, Doctor. Will you have a drink?”
---Sandeep Jauhar, MD
Given the suffering, we can deduce this doctor needs to be under a doctor’s care. During his internship Sandeep wobbles between being a depressed ascetic and an agnostic living in a hyperhidrotic world burdened with self-guilt. “When you didn’t know what you were doing...anything could happen.” Especially in the case of a patient pulling out a urinary catheter and then having to tap another patient's artery---for the first time.
Masochistic tread of bloody septic bare feet on sharp rusty nails is my description of this journey. Dr. Jauhar makes his rounds and finds the clandestine “schatz” in the wards. Going from physicist (having finished his doctoral dissertation on quantum dots) to physician and then on to writing for the prestigious New York Times. Absolute medicinal morphine in “Intern: A Doctor’s Initiation!” Brace yourself, buy and read.
March 26, 2012
I almost didn't even bother finishing this book--the author's attitude grated and grated to the point where I was actively angry with him. His self-absorption knows no ends. Everything--including the woe felt by a young man diagnosed with testicular cancer--comes back to his comparatively trivial existential angst about his career choice, which gets incredibly old before the book is even a third of the way finished. And if the self-absorption isn't enough? Worry not--you get a nice heaping helping of egotism and arrogance along with it, both of which seem entirely unjustified based on the content of this almost masturbatory memoir.
Unless you personally are feeling some sort of angst about a lack of direction in your medical life and feel that someone whinging about his own crisis might perk you up, I would not recommend this book. I picked it up for the medicine, and was horribly, horribly disappointed.
Unless you personally are feeling some sort of angst about a lack of direction in your medical life and feel that someone whinging about his own crisis might perk you up, I would not recommend this book. I picked it up for the medicine, and was horribly, horribly disappointed.
September 5, 2009
I'll admit that I'm curious about the lives of the doctors who care for me and my family. How many kids do they have? Where do they go on vacation? Are they happy? But if they're not happy, do I really want to know? In Intern, Sandeep Jauhar describes the crisis he went through during his intern year (the first year after medical school-- a hellish, hazing sort of year when doctors are on call every third or fourth night and work LONG hours the other days). It's an interesting, well-written book, filled with stories about what Jauhar learned from his patients (not all that unlike Atul Gawande's writing about his residency experience). The main difference is that Jauhar didn't really know what he wanted from his life, constantly saw the grass as greener on the other side of the fence, and always second-guessed his decision to go into medicine (he started medical school after finishing a PhD in physics). In other words, he was a big whiner.
I haven't been an intern myself, but I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of what interns go through. And after reading about Jauhar's experience, I feel exceptionally lucky that I was married to an intern who loved what he was doing, who came home from 36-hour shifts to shovel our driveway, who listened with a sympathetic ear when I talked about staying up all night with a baby and a toddler. I look back on Eddie's intern year as the hardest of our lives as parents and one of his hardest as a physician, but I think that if Eddie wrote a book about the experience, it wouldn't have been as whiny or angsty.
I haven't been an intern myself, but I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of what interns go through. And after reading about Jauhar's experience, I feel exceptionally lucky that I was married to an intern who loved what he was doing, who came home from 36-hour shifts to shovel our driveway, who listened with a sympathetic ear when I talked about staying up all night with a baby and a toddler. I look back on Eddie's intern year as the hardest of our lives as parents and one of his hardest as a physician, but I think that if Eddie wrote a book about the experience, it wouldn't have been as whiny or angsty.
October 30, 2017
I did not like this book. I did not like the author, although I have never met him. He may be quite a wonderful person but it is apparent after reading "Intern" that he is not a very good doctor -- and he knows it.
Dr. Jauhar held a PhD in Physics, and I can understand that amount of work and time it takes to accomplish this as one of my sons is a PhD in Physics from Yale. I understand medical school because I went through pre-med at University of Virginia, then took a year off to raise money to continue on to medical school. I graduated high school, served in the Air Force, and then went to college, so being an older student definitely clouded any life-changing decision I made, such as whether or not to continue in 1998 to medical school, knowing it would be likely I wouldn't have a child due to the length of time of school, internship, specialization, setting up practice, etc. I also was well aware that a large number of medical students end up not even liking medicine once they're faced with the idiocy of 30-hour nights and an inability to truly help anyone because of insurance, bureaucracy, Big Pharma, etc etc.
So I get it. I get it, Sandeep. I do.
However, I don't know why you know all these things, know you were sub-par at so much (and admitted as much yourself in your book), and yet kept plodding on. Truly, plodding. The perfect word for someone who rarely seemed to show up on time anywhere and who, although determined to be a cardiologist, admits not rushing to Codes. I don't understand you, Dr. Jauhar. I truly don't.
Beyond that, we have how unlikeable you are. You say so yourself! You are so down on yourself I don't know how you see up! Add to that your misogyny, your repugnant descriptions of your PATIENTS, your "should I/shouldn't I" line constantly nattering along in the background -- I couldn't stand to be around you and I would never allow you to treat me.
You do a decent job of exposing what most medical memoirists do -- the health care system is broken, and the medical school training is broken -- but you are so very difficult to feel sorry for. Watching you carry your angst on your shoulders, it's difficult to imagine why you stayed a doctor! But then I'll talk about that in my review of your second book, "Doctored".
I got through it, but I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone at all.
Dr. Jauhar held a PhD in Physics, and I can understand that amount of work and time it takes to accomplish this as one of my sons is a PhD in Physics from Yale. I understand medical school because I went through pre-med at University of Virginia, then took a year off to raise money to continue on to medical school. I graduated high school, served in the Air Force, and then went to college, so being an older student definitely clouded any life-changing decision I made, such as whether or not to continue in 1998 to medical school, knowing it would be likely I wouldn't have a child due to the length of time of school, internship, specialization, setting up practice, etc. I also was well aware that a large number of medical students end up not even liking medicine once they're faced with the idiocy of 30-hour nights and an inability to truly help anyone because of insurance, bureaucracy, Big Pharma, etc etc.
So I get it. I get it, Sandeep. I do.
However, I don't know why you know all these things, know you were sub-par at so much (and admitted as much yourself in your book), and yet kept plodding on. Truly, plodding. The perfect word for someone who rarely seemed to show up on time anywhere and who, although determined to be a cardiologist, admits not rushing to Codes. I don't understand you, Dr. Jauhar. I truly don't.
Beyond that, we have how unlikeable you are. You say so yourself! You are so down on yourself I don't know how you see up! Add to that your misogyny, your repugnant descriptions of your PATIENTS, your "should I/shouldn't I" line constantly nattering along in the background -- I couldn't stand to be around you and I would never allow you to treat me.
You do a decent job of exposing what most medical memoirists do -- the health care system is broken, and the medical school training is broken -- but you are so very difficult to feel sorry for. Watching you carry your angst on your shoulders, it's difficult to imagine why you stayed a doctor! But then I'll talk about that in my review of your second book, "Doctored".
I got through it, but I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone at all.
August 27, 2010
This book was different than I had expected it to be. I had expected it to be funnier than it was...more along the lines of "The Nanny Diaries" but for doctors.
That said, I still enjoyed the book. As others have said, Dr. Jauhar's writing style is sensitive and insightful, but also a bit self-indulgent at times. After all, most professionals have moments of doubt, have major hurdles to overcome in their education or when they are a rookie, and will continue to have hurdles through their careers.
Having been someone who switched majors three different times in college and who still has interests in lots of things, I could relate to Dr. Jauhar's curiosity about other professions and his hesitancy to settle down and just pick one. But I also really related to his ending sentiment that in the end, the real education is not in school or even necessarily in your internship. It's all around you.
What I will take away with me besides that final sentiment is that as a patient, I need to be my own advocate. I need to speak up when I have concerns, read up on my symptoms, illnesses, prescriptions and treatments so that I can ask pointed, educated questions. If something doesn't seem right, speak up and keep asking until you're satisfied with the answer...or get a second opinion. Because even though most doctors DO want to help, many of them are overworked & tired and may not have taken the time to read up on my history and my specific issues, so if I can help them out, I'm helping myself out, too.
That said, I still enjoyed the book. As others have said, Dr. Jauhar's writing style is sensitive and insightful, but also a bit self-indulgent at times. After all, most professionals have moments of doubt, have major hurdles to overcome in their education or when they are a rookie, and will continue to have hurdles through their careers.
Having been someone who switched majors three different times in college and who still has interests in lots of things, I could relate to Dr. Jauhar's curiosity about other professions and his hesitancy to settle down and just pick one. But I also really related to his ending sentiment that in the end, the real education is not in school or even necessarily in your internship. It's all around you.
What I will take away with me besides that final sentiment is that as a patient, I need to be my own advocate. I need to speak up when I have concerns, read up on my symptoms, illnesses, prescriptions and treatments so that I can ask pointed, educated questions. If something doesn't seem right, speak up and keep asking until you're satisfied with the answer...or get a second opinion. Because even though most doctors DO want to help, many of them are overworked & tired and may not have taken the time to read up on my history and my specific issues, so if I can help them out, I'm helping myself out, too.
July 27, 2024
this book was Written By A Man: no woman mentioned in this book, whether physician colleague, a patient in need, or his own wife was exempt from superfluous descriptions of level of physical attractiveness
June 8, 2021
The life of a person deciding and becoming a doctor is guaranteed to be full of ambivalent experiences, intense responsibility, requirement to learn seas of knowledge fast, and survive through it all. When you read about personal stories like Jauhar's, you learn to respect the intensity that this profession pushes you through.
The many stories about the various patients in ICU, cancer ward, and HIV sufferers really make you think. About life choices, about the difficulties of doctors when the treatment is actually not treating but causing more damage, about the ethical discussions, tons of them that each doctor probably goes through internally and also with fellow colleagues. How can this not be exciting and interesting?
Absolutely mesmerised by this read, I'm actually sad I've finished the book. I'll definitely look for something similar.
I also don't understand some of the other reviewees being disappointed about the doctor's narrative being egotistical and self-centered. I think you got the whole book wrong; it's an honest story of how a doctor "in the works" feels and thinks throughout his internship and residency. I think it was super honest, and I do appreciate someone being able to openly say "I don't know if this is really for me". Majority of us have been in similar situations, and majority of us would never admit that they've had similar internal disputes and dissatisfactions about things you are supposed to go through with grace, enjoying it all.
The many stories about the various patients in ICU, cancer ward, and HIV sufferers really make you think. About life choices, about the difficulties of doctors when the treatment is actually not treating but causing more damage, about the ethical discussions, tons of them that each doctor probably goes through internally and also with fellow colleagues. How can this not be exciting and interesting?
Absolutely mesmerised by this read, I'm actually sad I've finished the book. I'll definitely look for something similar.
I also don't understand some of the other reviewees being disappointed about the doctor's narrative being egotistical and self-centered. I think you got the whole book wrong; it's an honest story of how a doctor "in the works" feels and thinks throughout his internship and residency. I think it was super honest, and I do appreciate someone being able to openly say "I don't know if this is really for me". Majority of us have been in similar situations, and majority of us would never admit that they've had similar internal disputes and dissatisfactions about things you are supposed to go through with grace, enjoying it all.
February 19, 2017
200 pages of wibbling about whether to be a doctor, 100 pages of wibbling about whether everyone thinks he's a good doctor or not. Along the way he seems pretty terrible at doctoring.
July 28, 2019
A brutally (almost shockingly so) honest look at a doctor's first year of residency, the internship year. The "bitch" year, the personal assistant year, the abused newbie year.
This author is the opposite of everyone who always knew they wanted to be a doctor. He had a PhD in physics, and then had some experience as a journalist before coming into medicine. He was never sure through the course of the book that this is what he wanted to do. That's a tough place to be in, given the nonstop, sleep-deprived, overworked environment of residency. He described medicine as "bereft of beauty"... mechanical, dehumanizing.
This is one of those memoirs where I'm wondering if the author's friends and family are still speaking to him...it was that honest!
Some telling and terrifying tidbits about medicine: all those numerous tests you get are to protect the doctor, not so much to help you.
Residency is like "having a final every day of your life" (p. 100). Imagine this. Imagine how desensitized you would get to the pressure.
When a family orders "heroic measures" to be done to a 92-year old parent who is on their way to death quickly and with 100% certainty, doctors and nurses will unofficially and unspokenly do a "slow code" (i.e. drag their feet when "rushing" to the patient to perform the "heroic measures"... take their time, do the CPR inefficiently, etc. I actually think this is a good thing because people are going to die, and prolonging their life like this can be torture, and is sometimes done for unethical reasons like to keep pilfering their Social Security checks, but, let's be real--it's the letter and not the spirit of the law).
The biggest brain twist of this whole book for me was the author's musings about "what are we even doing here?" with hospitals in general. He said, for the most part, people get better on their own--the body has a remarkable way of re-calibrating itself. Or they don't, and they die anyway, despite what the doctors and nurses do. But for all the in-between... all the tests, all the IV's, all the catheters and monitors and cat scans and MRIs... well - the author wonders how much of that really makes a difference in the big picture. I'd never thought of hospitals and emergency care on this "macro" scale before, and it's interesting, terrifying, alarming.
This author is the opposite of everyone who always knew they wanted to be a doctor. He had a PhD in physics, and then had some experience as a journalist before coming into medicine. He was never sure through the course of the book that this is what he wanted to do. That's a tough place to be in, given the nonstop, sleep-deprived, overworked environment of residency. He described medicine as "bereft of beauty"... mechanical, dehumanizing.
This is one of those memoirs where I'm wondering if the author's friends and family are still speaking to him...it was that honest!
Some telling and terrifying tidbits about medicine: all those numerous tests you get are to protect the doctor, not so much to help you.
Residency is like "having a final every day of your life" (p. 100). Imagine this. Imagine how desensitized you would get to the pressure.
When a family orders "heroic measures" to be done to a 92-year old parent who is on their way to death quickly and with 100% certainty, doctors and nurses will unofficially and unspokenly do a "slow code" (i.e. drag their feet when "rushing" to the patient to perform the "heroic measures"... take their time, do the CPR inefficiently, etc. I actually think this is a good thing because people are going to die, and prolonging their life like this can be torture, and is sometimes done for unethical reasons like to keep pilfering their Social Security checks, but, let's be real--it's the letter and not the spirit of the law).
The biggest brain twist of this whole book for me was the author's musings about "what are we even doing here?" with hospitals in general. He said, for the most part, people get better on their own--the body has a remarkable way of re-calibrating itself. Or they don't, and they die anyway, despite what the doctors and nurses do. But for all the in-between... all the tests, all the IV's, all the catheters and monitors and cat scans and MRIs... well - the author wonders how much of that really makes a difference in the big picture. I'd never thought of hospitals and emergency care on this "macro" scale before, and it's interesting, terrifying, alarming.
February 3, 2018
I love medical memoirs, but I agree with @Lobstergirl; there’s this weird, casual misogyny that permeates the whole book. Every single woman is a “pretty blonde” or a “knockout.” His colleague Caitlin is "a very attractive brunette” with “great breasts.” He describes a woman whose husband is dying as sensual. Not only is it unnecessary, but it’s just bizarre. I really enjoyed the book, but I have no idea how Jauhar’s constant sexualization of women made it past his editor.
September 18, 2018
What is it like to be an intern in a big hospital in New York? According to this doctor it is not much fun. I cant imagine a job being more stressful than what these future MD's go through. This book is at its best when he is talking about individual patients and I wish he could have gone deeper into their histories but the truth is he does not have time to treat the whole patient and is often dealing with several emergencies at once. He does not have confidence in his abilities and often questions if this is what he really wants to do. He eventually takes a lot of heat for writing to the newspaper to protest the terrible conditions that doctors were expected to treat patients. I will look to see if he has a book about his experiences after internship to see if things got better for him.
November 20, 2009
A great trial attorney once told me that a plaintiff's attorney should never leave a nurse on the jury. His reasoning was that nurses make unsympathetic jurors because the suffering they see in their jobs makes them jaded and insensitive. A kernel of truth lies at the heart of that stereotype. The same kernel of truth provides much of the dramatic tension in Sandeep Jauhar's insightful memoir about his medical training. Dr. Jauhar's story is not only the story of his struggle to learn his craft, it is also the story of some of the thorniest problems confronting modern medicine.
In many ways, Dr. Jauhar was not the typical young, aggressive, and driven intern. Never entirely sure he wanted to be a doctor, he nonetheless succumbed to family pressures, and enrolled in medical school after having earned a PhD in physics, specializing in research on quantum dots. His older brother was already a resident, and was brash, self-confident and assertive -- all the things that the far more cerebral Sandeep was not.
At the outset of his internship, Jauhar was afraid that medical training would make him insensitive, that he would become like many of the interns and residents he saw, who brushed off the suffering and tragedy that they saw every day, and even made fun of their sick and dying patients. He also feared he would never overcome his lack of knowledge and confidence. More a thinker than a doer, Jauhar found it hard to jump in and make decisions and take charge of the treatment of his patients. Jauhar's book tells the story of how his year of internship transformed him from a fearful beginner to a doctor with confidence and skills.
I read Intern not long after reading The Intern Blues. The contrast between the two books is striking. The Intern Blues is raw and immediate. Basically, the contemporaneous thoughts of three interns speaking into a tape recorder, it has all the grit and rough reality of battlefield notes. Intern is a far more composed, nuanced and cooler look at internship, thoughtfully described in hindsight. Jauhar has distilled the experience down to its essence. For example, rather than describing the frantic pace, exhaustion and hard work of internship in hectic detail, he instead writes in spare prose that he slept through a performance of a Mozart concert, and at his apartment, "the mail was piling up; the newspaper went unread; clothes needed to be laundered."
Much of Jauhar's journey and struggle is interior. He agonizes about how the lack of time keeps him from treating his patients as people with feelings, he worries about how his lack of experience and skill causes him to hurt his patients with unnecessary or bungled procedures. He wonders if it's right for doctors to pressure patients into consenting to procedures the patients don't really want, but the doctor thinks is necessary, such as the insertion of a feeding tube or the placement of a breathing tube for mechanical ventilation. Many of these procedures are painful, and often they don't treat the underlying disease, they just make the patient miserable until their inevitable death. As Jauhar puts it, "In medicine, I had learned, there is often a fine line between the barbaric and the compassionate." Dr. Juahar's book illustrates that essential fact, and reminds us that the best doctors are those that learn how to stay on the right side of that line, even as the availability of modern technology and the pressure to "do something" often nudge the doctor in the opposite direction.
While perhaps many, if not most, interns look back on the experience as a year of horror and as something they would not want to repeat, Dr. Jauhar comes to a different conclusion. While many doctors would disagree, Jauhar concludes that although his internship was marked by depression, gratuitous suffering and feelings of hoplessness, "there probably isn't a better way to learn medicine."
Jauhar felt that internship toughened, but coarsened him, that he learned to withstand pressure, to think schematically, to use his hands, to simplify, to make big decisions. Worried at the beginning that his "ruminative nature" would impair him as a doctor, he instead came to see that his unwillingness to act reflexively made him a better doctor. But the biggest lesson he learned was that medicine is "a glorious, quirky, inescapably human enterprise, with contentious debates, successes and failures, villains and heroes, oddities, mysteries, absurdities, and profundities."
Jauhar calls internship "the toughest year of my life," but says that he was glad he went through it, and that sometimes he actually envies new interns for a moment. Maybe that's because internship transformed him the way heat transforms steel. He says that although medical training probably doesn't need to be as painful as it used to be, and perhaps still is, "it probably has to retain a certain degree of wretchedness to serve its purpose." Dr. Jaurhar's wonderful memoir is a rich and revealing look at this wonderful, confounding and all too human wretchedness.
In many ways, Dr. Jauhar was not the typical young, aggressive, and driven intern. Never entirely sure he wanted to be a doctor, he nonetheless succumbed to family pressures, and enrolled in medical school after having earned a PhD in physics, specializing in research on quantum dots. His older brother was already a resident, and was brash, self-confident and assertive -- all the things that the far more cerebral Sandeep was not.
At the outset of his internship, Jauhar was afraid that medical training would make him insensitive, that he would become like many of the interns and residents he saw, who brushed off the suffering and tragedy that they saw every day, and even made fun of their sick and dying patients. He also feared he would never overcome his lack of knowledge and confidence. More a thinker than a doer, Jauhar found it hard to jump in and make decisions and take charge of the treatment of his patients. Jauhar's book tells the story of how his year of internship transformed him from a fearful beginner to a doctor with confidence and skills.
I read Intern not long after reading The Intern Blues. The contrast between the two books is striking. The Intern Blues is raw and immediate. Basically, the contemporaneous thoughts of three interns speaking into a tape recorder, it has all the grit and rough reality of battlefield notes. Intern is a far more composed, nuanced and cooler look at internship, thoughtfully described in hindsight. Jauhar has distilled the experience down to its essence. For example, rather than describing the frantic pace, exhaustion and hard work of internship in hectic detail, he instead writes in spare prose that he slept through a performance of a Mozart concert, and at his apartment, "the mail was piling up; the newspaper went unread; clothes needed to be laundered."
Much of Jauhar's journey and struggle is interior. He agonizes about how the lack of time keeps him from treating his patients as people with feelings, he worries about how his lack of experience and skill causes him to hurt his patients with unnecessary or bungled procedures. He wonders if it's right for doctors to pressure patients into consenting to procedures the patients don't really want, but the doctor thinks is necessary, such as the insertion of a feeding tube or the placement of a breathing tube for mechanical ventilation. Many of these procedures are painful, and often they don't treat the underlying disease, they just make the patient miserable until their inevitable death. As Jauhar puts it, "In medicine, I had learned, there is often a fine line between the barbaric and the compassionate." Dr. Juahar's book illustrates that essential fact, and reminds us that the best doctors are those that learn how to stay on the right side of that line, even as the availability of modern technology and the pressure to "do something" often nudge the doctor in the opposite direction.
While perhaps many, if not most, interns look back on the experience as a year of horror and as something they would not want to repeat, Dr. Jauhar comes to a different conclusion. While many doctors would disagree, Jauhar concludes that although his internship was marked by depression, gratuitous suffering and feelings of hoplessness, "there probably isn't a better way to learn medicine."
Jauhar felt that internship toughened, but coarsened him, that he learned to withstand pressure, to think schematically, to use his hands, to simplify, to make big decisions. Worried at the beginning that his "ruminative nature" would impair him as a doctor, he instead came to see that his unwillingness to act reflexively made him a better doctor. But the biggest lesson he learned was that medicine is "a glorious, quirky, inescapably human enterprise, with contentious debates, successes and failures, villains and heroes, oddities, mysteries, absurdities, and profundities."
Jauhar calls internship "the toughest year of my life," but says that he was glad he went through it, and that sometimes he actually envies new interns for a moment. Maybe that's because internship transformed him the way heat transforms steel. He says that although medical training probably doesn't need to be as painful as it used to be, and perhaps still is, "it probably has to retain a certain degree of wretchedness to serve its purpose." Dr. Jaurhar's wonderful memoir is a rich and revealing look at this wonderful, confounding and all too human wretchedness.
August 29, 2016
I was bummed I accidentally deleted my first review!
I will preface this that I am a physician - about five years out of internship. I generally have avoided medical memoirs or medical books in general but this was on my bfs bookshelf so I picked it up. I hate overly grandiose memoirs of medicine and for that reason I liked this book. This book felt real. I doubt its a story that anyone else outside of medicine could truly appreciate though. Medical training is such a unique experience and I think that is why the bad reviews are so popular on here.
To me there was nothing narcissistic about the author. He seemed like a real intern.... struggling to get through the nightmare of checking boxes. I think the hardest thing about intern year or now second year when duty hour restrictions are less strict isn't the sleep deprivation --- although thats not fun--- it's the check box, menial jobs that make up the basis for the intern year and sometimes residency. To go through every day thinking a secretary could do the majority of your job. Of course there is some learning and some decision making and some interesting moments but those are so far between that your exhausted and don't have the time to even think about them.
A lot of people felt that this book would be funnier - I do agree someone could write a funny book but that would be quite the spin and wouldn't sound like a realistic memoir.
Many felt that the author was narcissistic - I don't really get this either. I guess his desire to always do something else. His thoughts that the grass was always greener elsewhere and how he was constantly changing his mind. I again didn't see this as narcissistic but something that a lot of residents go through- thinking whether they made the right decision. There are many people I know and many who wrote of this online who constantly felt that everyone else had a better life. People talk about how they envied the waitress, the housekeeper, almost anyone while in residency. This was common- going to work any job seemed better.
I also think that he constantly was wanting a deeper relationship with his patients but didn't have the time. I think this also was part of his frustration and also his desire to go into psych. Thankfully there is a lot more meaningful communication with patients after intern year- some will differ int his opinion as the intern is on the front line but I really feel that while you have a lot of communiation with patients when you admit them and with some of the patients you have to see a lot- many times you don't get a chance to really talk.
Many people felt he was whiny- what i said above. I really felt that he was real.
Some don't think he was passionate enough- I don't even understand how someone can be passionate about checking boxes, doing tasks a secretary could do which is most of intern year. I think that would be insane for a self proclaimed thinker like himself to be satisfied with intern year. He was a scientist - he wanted a thinking job and intern year is not that.I have met several people in medical training who were disappointed and depressed by the lack of mental stimulation. THankfully when you get higher in medicine there is thinking! I'm glad he was happy with his decision at the end.
I was very surprised by how much I appreciated this book. I won't say enjoyed but I felt that it was accurate. I thought that the author was interesting as well. What a brave thing to do to write for the New York Times during residency!
I will preface this that I am a physician - about five years out of internship. I generally have avoided medical memoirs or medical books in general but this was on my bfs bookshelf so I picked it up. I hate overly grandiose memoirs of medicine and for that reason I liked this book. This book felt real. I doubt its a story that anyone else outside of medicine could truly appreciate though. Medical training is such a unique experience and I think that is why the bad reviews are so popular on here.
To me there was nothing narcissistic about the author. He seemed like a real intern.... struggling to get through the nightmare of checking boxes. I think the hardest thing about intern year or now second year when duty hour restrictions are less strict isn't the sleep deprivation --- although thats not fun--- it's the check box, menial jobs that make up the basis for the intern year and sometimes residency. To go through every day thinking a secretary could do the majority of your job. Of course there is some learning and some decision making and some interesting moments but those are so far between that your exhausted and don't have the time to even think about them.
A lot of people felt that this book would be funnier - I do agree someone could write a funny book but that would be quite the spin and wouldn't sound like a realistic memoir.
Many felt that the author was narcissistic - I don't really get this either. I guess his desire to always do something else. His thoughts that the grass was always greener elsewhere and how he was constantly changing his mind. I again didn't see this as narcissistic but something that a lot of residents go through- thinking whether they made the right decision. There are many people I know and many who wrote of this online who constantly felt that everyone else had a better life. People talk about how they envied the waitress, the housekeeper, almost anyone while in residency. This was common- going to work any job seemed better.
I also think that he constantly was wanting a deeper relationship with his patients but didn't have the time. I think this also was part of his frustration and also his desire to go into psych. Thankfully there is a lot more meaningful communication with patients after intern year- some will differ int his opinion as the intern is on the front line but I really feel that while you have a lot of communiation with patients when you admit them and with some of the patients you have to see a lot- many times you don't get a chance to really talk.
Many people felt he was whiny- what i said above. I really felt that he was real.
Some don't think he was passionate enough- I don't even understand how someone can be passionate about checking boxes, doing tasks a secretary could do which is most of intern year. I think that would be insane for a self proclaimed thinker like himself to be satisfied with intern year. He was a scientist - he wanted a thinking job and intern year is not that.I have met several people in medical training who were disappointed and depressed by the lack of mental stimulation. THankfully when you get higher in medicine there is thinking! I'm glad he was happy with his decision at the end.
I was very surprised by how much I appreciated this book. I won't say enjoyed but I felt that it was accurate. I thought that the author was interesting as well. What a brave thing to do to write for the New York Times during residency!
February 25, 2024
The medical stories of patients and their experiences were really the only thing that kept me reading this book. The random comments about the physical attractiveness of female doctors was v unnecessary. This memoir reeked privilege and was rough to get through.
April 22, 2011
"Be not afraid of greatness: some men are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them."
William Shakespeare, "Twelfth Night"
What leads a man into the 'noble career' of medicine? The answer to that question is deeply personal and for some of us, has not yet been answered concretely.
Yet, we practice medicine every day. We make the tough decisions demanded of us, work the long hours and give it the focus it demands.
What lies in the transformation from the naive, uninitiated non-doctor entering the profession for reasons stated in his application and repeated confidently at dinner parties, to the young physician, practicing though sometimes, without a concrete, guiding why.
How is it possible to feel lost in what is often considered one of the most meaningful lines of work in society?
These are questions that most young doctors grapple with, though almost never publicly. In my experience, they existed in a plane just above repression. They were the dangerous thoughts, the things that would lead you off the chosen path. Yet, they've remained the most pressing of all questions that come to my mind.
Dr. Sandeep Jauhar's book was a candid masterpiece. Its an accurate chronicle of the struggles involved in becoming a doctor. Its a synergy of his thoughts and the experiences that spurred them on.
It's like having a long heart-to-heart with an encouraging older brother who survived having greatness thrust upon him.
It's a book that every young doctor, especially if you're unsure of what you're doing wearing these shoes, must read.
Simply because it makes you feel at home with all of your feelings, positive and negative, about a profession that demands immersion.
William Shakespeare, "Twelfth Night"
What leads a man into the 'noble career' of medicine? The answer to that question is deeply personal and for some of us, has not yet been answered concretely.
Yet, we practice medicine every day. We make the tough decisions demanded of us, work the long hours and give it the focus it demands.
What lies in the transformation from the naive, uninitiated non-doctor entering the profession for reasons stated in his application and repeated confidently at dinner parties, to the young physician, practicing though sometimes, without a concrete, guiding why.
How is it possible to feel lost in what is often considered one of the most meaningful lines of work in society?
These are questions that most young doctors grapple with, though almost never publicly. In my experience, they existed in a plane just above repression. They were the dangerous thoughts, the things that would lead you off the chosen path. Yet, they've remained the most pressing of all questions that come to my mind.
Dr. Sandeep Jauhar's book was a candid masterpiece. Its an accurate chronicle of the struggles involved in becoming a doctor. Its a synergy of his thoughts and the experiences that spurred them on.
It's like having a long heart-to-heart with an encouraging older brother who survived having greatness thrust upon him.
It's a book that every young doctor, especially if you're unsure of what you're doing wearing these shoes, must read.
Simply because it makes you feel at home with all of your feelings, positive and negative, about a profession that demands immersion.
September 25, 2009
We have a favorite nephew, Doug, who has recently finished his intern year, and is now into his residency. The author seems to have been pulled in many directions, and was rarely sure of the wisdom of his choice of medicine. I think he truly portrayed that intern year--and how does anyone survive that?
This book is timely in that it talks about end of life care. And about DNR--DO NOT RESUSITATE. And I was reading it as Pres Obama is trying to finally settle healthcare for all Americans. Like the rest of the civilized countries have it.
And indeed, death is the 800 lb elephant in the room. Apparently lots of Americans view death as something to be overcome---at any cost. And with no sense of the heavy burden that is put upon the rest of our citizens. There was a US doctor some years ago who studied the UK system of medicine to figure out how they do it so much better, so much cheaper, so much less miserable---and what he learned? There are no 80 or 90 year olds in Intensive Care in the UK--why doesn't this make sense to everyone? We are all on the path of life--from start to finish---death is not to be overcome! It should be expected, and hopefully we are living our lives so that we can eventually relinquish life itself. Besides, for all believers, we're going to a better place!
This book is timely in that it talks about end of life care. And about DNR--DO NOT RESUSITATE. And I was reading it as Pres Obama is trying to finally settle healthcare for all Americans. Like the rest of the civilized countries have it.
And indeed, death is the 800 lb elephant in the room. Apparently lots of Americans view death as something to be overcome---at any cost. And with no sense of the heavy burden that is put upon the rest of our citizens. There was a US doctor some years ago who studied the UK system of medicine to figure out how they do it so much better, so much cheaper, so much less miserable---and what he learned? There are no 80 or 90 year olds in Intensive Care in the UK--why doesn't this make sense to everyone? We are all on the path of life--from start to finish---death is not to be overcome! It should be expected, and hopefully we are living our lives so that we can eventually relinquish life itself. Besides, for all believers, we're going to a better place!
August 22, 2020
So I came to this book because I'm a physician, getting back to teaching residents and interns, and I wanted a reminder of what intern year is like.
Halfway into reading this book, I thought about writing my own. Not because it was good, but because it was so bad! I identified with much of what the author described, but he remained on the superficial level, describing the incidents without delving into what they meant, either for him or for medicine. At times he tried (poorly) to emulate House of God, at times he gazed at his own navel for a bit too long.
I'm sure he's a great doctor and has helped lots of people, but he was the med student and resident that I internally groaned when I had to work with them. He went into med school because he didn't know what to do with his life, and he was more interested in pleasing his parents than finding his calling. Maybe he found it now, but I'm glad he wasn't one of my colleagues.
In short, this book adds nothing to the conversation about medicine, medical training, and the problems and benefits it carries. It's solipsism at it's worst. I could write something more insightful than this. My friend who blogged throughout med school and residency was more insightful than this. Whether you are in medicine or not, skip this book.
Halfway into reading this book, I thought about writing my own. Not because it was good, but because it was so bad! I identified with much of what the author described, but he remained on the superficial level, describing the incidents without delving into what they meant, either for him or for medicine. At times he tried (poorly) to emulate House of God, at times he gazed at his own navel for a bit too long.
I'm sure he's a great doctor and has helped lots of people, but he was the med student and resident that I internally groaned when I had to work with them. He went into med school because he didn't know what to do with his life, and he was more interested in pleasing his parents than finding his calling. Maybe he found it now, but I'm glad he wasn't one of my colleagues.
In short, this book adds nothing to the conversation about medicine, medical training, and the problems and benefits it carries. It's solipsism at it's worst. I could write something more insightful than this. My friend who blogged throughout med school and residency was more insightful than this. Whether you are in medicine or not, skip this book.
December 28, 2012
What a wonderful and ultimately frightening book! Continuing on my memoir kick, Jauhar's memoir about being a medical intern in a NYC hospital shows what an incredibly steep learning curve newly graduated doctors are on. It is astonishing to me how quickly Jauhar goes from knowing little in his first year as an intern to being quite competent even by the second year. He recognizes how brutal the internship is with respect to hours etc. I get the sense that the biggest casualty from tiredness is empathy for patients and he quickly regains it in his second year. After reading Intern, my resolve to avoid hospital visits at all costs is strengthened. What dreadful places! The discussion of ethics is fascinating (despite all efforts to empower patients, many of them want the doctor to recommend treatment - completely understandable). A couple of medical situations made me cry - the poor woman who lost her husband of 33 to some kind of cancer when he was her only family in the world really set me off.
September 19, 2021
Rating: 3.5/5
As a newly minted medical intern myself, I found this book very resonant with many of my own thoughts and challenges I have been faced with in these early months of residency. Bringing up his own concerns about imposter syndrome, Jauhar is brutally honest throughout this book. He openly states that medicine wasn't an outright passion for him like so many others in his class. Infact in the course of the book, he also questions the medical profession on the whole and its training process. Many of the sickest patients require procedures so invasive (and unfortunately not always successful) that one cannot help question their necessity. I appreciated the amount of time Jauhar spent discussing how he approached 'end of life' discussions with patients and their families. It's a topic I don't feel totally comfortable broaching with patients yet, so it was worthwhile hearing his experiences learning to navigate these discussions.
I have often felt let down with the depersonalization of the medical field, and the way it has allowed bias and paternalism to affect the way certain patients get treated. I will say that many of Jauhar's experiences with toxic personalities in his co-residents and senior attendings have been much more negative than anything I have experienced myself, most likely due to the ongoing discussions about "burnout" and "wellness" that have recently been dominating the medical education system.
I will say I did not appreciate the way Jauhar minimized and defended the unfair expectations placed on him by his parents. It seemed that when he was going through periods of depression, his parents guilted him about the fact that he chose to switch careers. It seemed that there was a lot of pressure from them for him to stay in the medical field, especially to "keep up" with his brother Rajiv. None of this surprises me as I'm South Asian myself, but luckily not from a family that ever held me to similar expectations. Regardless, I don't believe it was fair for them to guilt him - and unfortunately Jauhar never faults them for their actions.
As the book progressed and Jauhar talked about moving on to his second and third years of residency, as well as fellowship, I felt disappointed. Up until this point, I had felt that Jauhar was truly upset with the system - as indicated by his courageous NYT Op-Ed pieces that called out the very hospital he was working for. But in the last few chapters, Jauhar did little to call for action, or advocate for any changes. Instead, he ends the book by settling for the status quo. He states that while medical training is rigorous and often unkind to trainees, he believes there is a benefit to the system. This was a disappointing conclusion to an overall insightful memoir. Physician suicide is at an all time high. More and more studies indicate that longer shifts that leave doctors sleep-deprived do not in fact produce better results. The system certainly needs to be reformed, and I was sad to see that Jauhar did not emphasize this point in his conclusion.
As a newly minted medical intern myself, I found this book very resonant with many of my own thoughts and challenges I have been faced with in these early months of residency. Bringing up his own concerns about imposter syndrome, Jauhar is brutally honest throughout this book. He openly states that medicine wasn't an outright passion for him like so many others in his class. Infact in the course of the book, he also questions the medical profession on the whole and its training process. Many of the sickest patients require procedures so invasive (and unfortunately not always successful) that one cannot help question their necessity. I appreciated the amount of time Jauhar spent discussing how he approached 'end of life' discussions with patients and their families. It's a topic I don't feel totally comfortable broaching with patients yet, so it was worthwhile hearing his experiences learning to navigate these discussions.
I have often felt let down with the depersonalization of the medical field, and the way it has allowed bias and paternalism to affect the way certain patients get treated. I will say that many of Jauhar's experiences with toxic personalities in his co-residents and senior attendings have been much more negative than anything I have experienced myself, most likely due to the ongoing discussions about "burnout" and "wellness" that have recently been dominating the medical education system.
I will say I did not appreciate the way Jauhar minimized and defended the unfair expectations placed on him by his parents. It seemed that when he was going through periods of depression, his parents guilted him about the fact that he chose to switch careers. It seemed that there was a lot of pressure from them for him to stay in the medical field, especially to "keep up" with his brother Rajiv. None of this surprises me as I'm South Asian myself, but luckily not from a family that ever held me to similar expectations. Regardless, I don't believe it was fair for them to guilt him - and unfortunately Jauhar never faults them for their actions.
As the book progressed and Jauhar talked about moving on to his second and third years of residency, as well as fellowship, I felt disappointed. Up until this point, I had felt that Jauhar was truly upset with the system - as indicated by his courageous NYT Op-Ed pieces that called out the very hospital he was working for. But in the last few chapters, Jauhar did little to call for action, or advocate for any changes. Instead, he ends the book by settling for the status quo. He states that while medical training is rigorous and often unkind to trainees, he believes there is a benefit to the system. This was a disappointing conclusion to an overall insightful memoir. Physician suicide is at an all time high. More and more studies indicate that longer shifts that leave doctors sleep-deprived do not in fact produce better results. The system certainly needs to be reformed, and I was sad to see that Jauhar did not emphasize this point in his conclusion.
June 4, 2018
3.5 stars. I love reading healthcare provider memoirs, and especially love specific patient stories, and this book definitely had many of those. I did think at times Dr. Jauhar was too self-indulgent in his wallowing. By the halfway point of the book, I wanted to slap him and tell him to stop mourning his physics career and move on. In fact, I stopped reading the book for two months because I felt the wallowing bogged down the middle section.
I liked how he used specific patient stories to illustrate his points on principles in healthcare. As a healthcare provider, I too struggle with how paternalistic medicine should be -- obviously we have to respect patient autonomy, but to a certain degree, patient autonomy is derived from how much we as healthcare providers allow. Each case with each patient is different, but it can be a hard line to draw.
I identified with his last sentiments at the end of the book regarding how his approach to medicine has changed. I think many of us start out very idealistic and critical of our colleagues who are more jaded. I still wonder to what degree it is beneficial to preserve that. Do we become less critical of the jaded behavior because we are worn down? Or is it because we realize that it is a moralistic ivory tower that is unreasonable? Is this idealism worth preserving? Still struggling with this idea myself.
I liked how he used specific patient stories to illustrate his points on principles in healthcare. As a healthcare provider, I too struggle with how paternalistic medicine should be -- obviously we have to respect patient autonomy, but to a certain degree, patient autonomy is derived from how much we as healthcare providers allow. Each case with each patient is different, but it can be a hard line to draw.
I identified with his last sentiments at the end of the book regarding how his approach to medicine has changed. I think many of us start out very idealistic and critical of our colleagues who are more jaded. I still wonder to what degree it is beneficial to preserve that. Do we become less critical of the jaded behavior because we are worn down? Or is it because we realize that it is a moralistic ivory tower that is unreasonable? Is this idealism worth preserving? Still struggling with this idea myself.
April 7, 2020
I love reading about medical cases, experiences, and ethics, so I did overall enjoy this book. BUT the author is a doctor who just thought going into medicine would be a good move and spent the first 3/4 of the book second guessing his career choices, which really annoyed me at times (especially as someone who is psyched to go into medicine). The last 1/4 of the book took a pleasant turn when he finally felt at peace with his decision and dove more into the type of medical writing that I enjoy.
December 13, 2017
Doctors, they are the people that help heal others with their knowledge. Many children dream of becoming a doctor when they are young, but do they really know what it takes to get there? Intern by Sandeep Jauhar is an autobiography nonfiction novel that tells the story of struggles on his journey to becoming a doctor.
Sandeep is the narrator in his novel Intern. He grew up in a country in Asia and has an older brother who also had the dreams of being in the medical field. His parents had the money to send their oldest child to college and medical school to pursue his dreams of being a doctor. Sandeep also wanted to follow in his footsteps and do the same, the only problem is that his parents did not support his decision. They both did not believe he could become the doctor that he wanted to be. But Sandeep did not let that stop him from doing what he really wanted. He soon went to college and graduated then went onto medical school. There were many resident who would give him a hard to to try and make him feel like he could not do anything, but he never gave up on his dreams. Through all the late night shifts and hardships that come with being in the medical field Sandeep was able to overcome them and move forward with his career. Now Sandeep is a cardiologist doing the best he ever has and is striving in his career.
I give Intern by Sandeep Jauhar four out of five stars. Reading about Sandeep’s journey to becoming a doctor was very interesting. His struggles were very relatable and eye opening as to how he dealt with his emotions. I personally love autobiographies, but Intern by Sandeep Jauhar was not one of my favorites. Personally I believe he could have gone in my detail about each specialty he mentioned and the different struggles he faced. Overall, I enjoyed Intern by Sandeep Jauhar and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading autobiographies and anything medical related.
Sandeep is the narrator in his novel Intern. He grew up in a country in Asia and has an older brother who also had the dreams of being in the medical field. His parents had the money to send their oldest child to college and medical school to pursue his dreams of being a doctor. Sandeep also wanted to follow in his footsteps and do the same, the only problem is that his parents did not support his decision. They both did not believe he could become the doctor that he wanted to be. But Sandeep did not let that stop him from doing what he really wanted. He soon went to college and graduated then went onto medical school. There were many resident who would give him a hard to to try and make him feel like he could not do anything, but he never gave up on his dreams. Through all the late night shifts and hardships that come with being in the medical field Sandeep was able to overcome them and move forward with his career. Now Sandeep is a cardiologist doing the best he ever has and is striving in his career.
I give Intern by Sandeep Jauhar four out of five stars. Reading about Sandeep’s journey to becoming a doctor was very interesting. His struggles were very relatable and eye opening as to how he dealt with his emotions. I personally love autobiographies, but Intern by Sandeep Jauhar was not one of my favorites. Personally I believe he could have gone in my detail about each specialty he mentioned and the different struggles he faced. Overall, I enjoyed Intern by Sandeep Jauhar and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading autobiographies and anything medical related.
September 1, 2024
I'm a sucker for memoirs about people struggling (failing, succeeding) at work. Particularly medicine. This one was a doozy. I would be absolutely clueless in a hospital, too, so that I could understand. I could also understand his second-thoughts/regret about career choice. Not sure exactly how or when he turned a corner, so I'm surprised he did stick with it. (His wife, too. He seemed equally apathetic about her.)
January 21, 2023
Very relatable, but damn do I want to escape from this life every now and then, medically oriented books aren’t my thing I guess.
June 29, 2025
I really just read a book where the author came to believe that the inhumane working conditions of intern doctors was justified😅 after everything he himself went through during his intern years. Wild.
January 6, 2021
Many reviews labeled the author as “arrogant, narcissistic, or douchey” but I disagree. His actions throughout his memoir reflect the culture of medicine and how senior physicians treat interns, residents, and even nurses. Examples included him feeling like he had something to prove, even if his actions didn’t benefit the patient, being punished for advocating for patients that were denied surgery because their chances of survival were low (surgeons get penalized for deaths during surgeries), and so many other flaws in our healthcare system. Overall, the story was realistic, but I just had a difficult time getting through the book.
May 19, 2018
Jauhar tells the story of his first two years of internship in New York City, and what makes it stand out is that his path to being a doctor is different than many of the similar books I've read. He has a Ph.D. in Physics, which sounds unpleasant to me, and apparently it was to him as well, because he hadn't even finished earning that degree before he needed a switch and chose medicine. Cultural influences came into play here, as he is Indian-American and his parents expected him to be a scientist and marry one too, so leaving physics for medicine improved his chances at finding a fellow Indian doctor, but also made him look like a failure in their eyes for changing careers before he even started. Jauhar's older brother is a cardiologist in New York, so after getting the Ph.D. in California, he enrolled in medical school in St. Louis and earned an internship spot at the same hospital where his brother works. This is good for getting advice from big bro during the tough times, but bad in that his brother always wanted to be a doctor and was motivated to excel, whereas Jauhar battles indecision and had the legacy of his brother in front of him at every step.
I like that he balanced the book well with personal anecdotes and patient stories. Normally, I'd hope for more patient stories, but because of the issues Jauhar faces throughout those 2 years, I was more interested in normal in learning about him. From a neck injury that takes him away from one of the crucial rotations in his first year, to his budding journalism career writing articles about the hospital for the New York Times, which don't sit well with the hospital or earn him more favor in the eyes of his parents, who feel that journalism is a weak career, Jauhar's path isn't particularly smooth. Otherwise, he encounters many of the common roadblocks in internship, feelings of inadequacies when a patient dies or nearly does so, perpetual exhaustion, clashes with more senior doctors, etc. Overall, an enjoyable book and I may have to seek out some of those articles he wrote, as they sounded fascinating as well.
I like that he balanced the book well with personal anecdotes and patient stories. Normally, I'd hope for more patient stories, but because of the issues Jauhar faces throughout those 2 years, I was more interested in normal in learning about him. From a neck injury that takes him away from one of the crucial rotations in his first year, to his budding journalism career writing articles about the hospital for the New York Times, which don't sit well with the hospital or earn him more favor in the eyes of his parents, who feel that journalism is a weak career, Jauhar's path isn't particularly smooth. Otherwise, he encounters many of the common roadblocks in internship, feelings of inadequacies when a patient dies or nearly does so, perpetual exhaustion, clashes with more senior doctors, etc. Overall, an enjoyable book and I may have to seek out some of those articles he wrote, as they sounded fascinating as well.
March 26, 2011
The practice of medicine is endlessly fascinating because it involves people and life and death and unique medical cases. For me, Atul Gawande is the model for how to tell all of that fascination in a way that is both engaging and illuminating. Intern is Jauhar's take – a memoir of his journey from being a Physics doctoral student to his years of internship at New York Hospital. Internship is the boot camp for doctors, the exhausting period where doctors both learn their craft and test their mettle, and Jauhar describes that trial period in all its glory and horror. He weaves together his mental and physical and emotional states with examples of different patients and situations during his training. I never get tired of hearing about interesting medical cases. He also does a good job of highlighting the different stressors (lack of sleep, lack of knowledge, lack of experience, etc) that contribute to the hell that is internship. And for those looking for a very personal relating of what it’s like becoming a doctor and not a clinical perspective (which Gawande’s books are more along the lines of), this is a solid candidate. For me, it led to my biggest criticism of the book: I found Jauhar completely unlikeable. For much of the book he wavered back and forth between whether or not he should be a doctor. He had become a doctor and stayed through medical school mainly because he wasn’t strong enough to stand up to his parents. And while in medical school, he relates his experience getting a summer internship in journalism and how he tried to find a way to write stuff for the New York Times. Throughout the first year of his internship, there are just pages and pages of this incessant hand-wringing of whether or not he should continue and whether or not he’s good enough. If I wanted to read about someone this wishy-washy, I’d have read something with Charlie Brown in it. And it’s clear that Jauhar is unique, and it’s not internship that causes all would-be doctors to go through this process. Jauhar relates how confident his younger brother was. He also relates an incident where he asks another intern whether or not she had any doubts about becoming a doctor and that person without hesitation answered no. In addition to this constant questioning of his career, he describes how he ended up writing a critical essay about internship that got published in the New York Times and caused him some consternation from fellow interns. The difference between Gawande and Jauhar is that when Gawande writes about issues within the practice of medicine, he does so professionally and offers potential solutions; Jauhar writes about issues as if he’s simply venting. To me, he comes off as a whining little tattletale. Overall, not a bad memoir if you can get past the emo main character. Recommended.
June 3, 2021
I would not recommend this book to anyone that I even made a new shelf entitled "nope".
Jauhar is an entitled prick who is creepy in the way he describes women. He seems to over-fixate on them, which is even more creepy when you realize this book is written years after he was a medical intern. So it's either he memorized the way these women look, or he created these physical attributes for whatever reason, I guess. Take your pick, one is not better than the other.
I borrow a line from a review I should've read:
I appreciated his background coming from physics and his recalling of his journey out of the academe, but at some point it felt like his background in physics was just another chip on his shoulder to show he's a much better and learned doctor than his peers.
Of course, there is the issue of him just being an asshole towards his patients. I've never been involved in American healthcare, but I have had my fair share of doctors in my life. Some of them were callous, glib, and even know-it-alls, but I've never had any of them – specialist, resident/interns – lash out at me because I asked to check on my sickly father's MRI only to be told that he currently has 80 patients on his plate. There is nothing that family member did to deserve a treatment like that.
Doctors like him are the reason why some people hate doctors, and why some people avoid doctors. He is dismissive, uncaring in his manner, with a slight tinge of judgmental. I have not met a single person who thinks that doctors and nurses have it easy, in their education, training, and daily work. But when you meet a sick person, they are in distress and require care. It's not easy for them as much as it is not easy for you to have 80 patients on your plate during your shift.
His character is so disgusting that I didn't even bother to review the writing, which is fine, by the way. It's uneventful. If you can tolerate him, then by all means, read this, but if not, I suggest you read Atul Gawande or Paul Kalanithi (who, despite a background in literature before medicine, does not come off as a pretentious prick) instead.
I've never been so glad to have met the callous, glib, and know-it-all doctors. Anyone but this guy.
Jauhar is an entitled prick who is creepy in the way he describes women. He seems to over-fixate on them, which is even more creepy when you realize this book is written years after he was a medical intern. So it's either he memorized the way these women look, or he created these physical attributes for whatever reason, I guess. Take your pick, one is not better than the other.
I borrow a line from a review I should've read:
There's a weird, casual misogyny in the book, odd for someone only in his forties. Rachel is "a knockout blonde." Nancy is "a good-looking blonde." A nurse is stocky, with "a broad Filipino mug and a mop of ink black hair" and stale breath. Caitlin, "a very attractive brunette," "had great breasts." As she explained to him the ins and outs of his oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital.
I appreciated his background coming from physics and his recalling of his journey out of the academe, but at some point it felt like his background in physics was just another chip on his shoulder to show he's a much better and learned doctor than his peers.
Of course, there is the issue of him just being an asshole towards his patients. I've never been involved in American healthcare, but I have had my fair share of doctors in my life. Some of them were callous, glib, and even know-it-alls, but I've never had any of them – specialist, resident/interns – lash out at me because I asked to check on my sickly father's MRI only to be told that he currently has 80 patients on his plate. There is nothing that family member did to deserve a treatment like that.
Doctors like him are the reason why some people hate doctors, and why some people avoid doctors. He is dismissive, uncaring in his manner, with a slight tinge of judgmental. I have not met a single person who thinks that doctors and nurses have it easy, in their education, training, and daily work. But when you meet a sick person, they are in distress and require care. It's not easy for them as much as it is not easy for you to have 80 patients on your plate during your shift.
His character is so disgusting that I didn't even bother to review the writing, which is fine, by the way. It's uneventful. If you can tolerate him, then by all means, read this, but if not, I suggest you read Atul Gawande or Paul Kalanithi (who, despite a background in literature before medicine, does not come off as a pretentious prick) instead.
I've never been so glad to have met the callous, glib, and know-it-all doctors. Anyone but this guy.
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