Learning to Play God: The Coming of Age of a Young Doctor

by Robert Marion

Do you know what your doctor really thinks or how your doctor really feels about medicine and about you? The seeds lie in the critical first few years of a medical education, and Dr. Robert Marion, director of the Center for Congenital Disorders at the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, draws from his own experiences as student, intern, and resident to provide some surprising -- and sobering -- answers.

In the course of twenty gripping, illuminating, and extraordinarily candid stories, Dr. Marion reveals the dehumanizing, slightly insane, and often brutal process of medical training. You will experience not only the intense pressure and chronic exhaustion of the doctor-to-be, but also the price the patient must often pay. While each story stands alone as an adventure in medicine, taken together they are a call to change. With profound eloquence and compassion, Dr. Marion explores ways in which to assure that humanity and idealism survive the grueling and destructive path to technical competency.

Genres: Medicine, Medical, Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

Reviews

[Morgan Tallman]

3.5 stars. Although I read this book for a class, I did end up enjoying it. It definitely wasn't one that I would have grabbed myself. The stories told were fascinating and I feel like I definitely have a better realization of the medical field. My main complaint is that I feel like some of the comments the author made about his training may no longer be relevant. He was going to medical school in the 1970's, and we're 40-50 years after his training, so I feel that some training techniques mentioned may no longer be relevant.

[Elin]

Ugh, this book makes me soooooo happy to not be working in the US. Ok, so this book has a couple of years now and his internship was back in the 70's but still... None of my older collegues who did their internships and residencies here back in the 70's experienced anything like that (I know we often talk about that)! I mean, on-call every 3rd night!?! And why the hell would you need a doctor to start an iv??

[Jayna Schwartz]

i appreciate his brutal honesty. he is not afraid to expose his own failures and vulnerabilities, and he does not gloss over several anecdotes that don't portray him in a very flattering light--all for the pursuit of exposing how the brutal system of medical training burns people out. i will say that while he portrays nurses positively, he makes it seem as if interns are performing every IV, EKG, blood culture set....tasks almost exclusively nurse-driven today. perhaps that illustrates how much the professions of medicine and nursing have both evolved.

[Brook Diamond]

always 5 stars wit this guy
interesting, honest, and often funny book about the experience of becoming a physician. My favorite line that gets funnier with context:

“On this of all nights, when I was sick myself and the emergency room was already packed, the director of the infectious disease service had to get on the evening news and tell all the parents of Boston that if their kid had a fever and a sore throat they’d better get over to my emergency room or else the kid might have a heart attack and die.”

[Jan]

Thank you to all physicians who had to put in so many hours and make anxiety-causing decisions the best they could, sometimes when sleep-deprived.....

[Miranda]

Better than Intern Blues. Little stories from Marion's medical training with nice little takeaways.

[Carter Bland]

Found this one on the shelf at the beach house / great read! So interesting

[Slaton Case]

I read this book prior to beginning medical school. "Learning to Play God" chronicles the author's journey through medical training - from medical student to attending. We morph with the author as junior clinicians into veteran practitioners.

And boy, what a ride. The brutal hours, the brutal-er insight into the medical errors and forlorn patient populations gracing the American medical landscape. If you aren't moved to tears by the desperate circumstances experienced by both author and their patients - check your pulse.

The most unfortunate reality is this book could be based in 2010s NYC rather than 1970s NYC.

[Beth]

Meh. I didn't think much of The Intern Blues either. The title has nothing apparent to do with the book. Dr. Marion has an epiphany early on about how he will be when he is a doctor but fails to carry what would be an apparent theme through until the end. Residency isn't easy; that's for sure. But this guy spent a fair amount of time being seriously pissed off at the world. The cover is also interesting - it appears that the people are in a surgical theater of some sort. Dr. Marion is (I think) a geneticist. Huh.

[Cyn]

Actually I didn't finish this. It didn't hold my interest. The story about starting the IV in the infant was upsetting to read. I don't recommend this book.