I remember reading Intern either during first year of medical school or the summer before. It scared me to death, thinking this was what I had to look forward to. But later in the midst of it I loved every minute.

I graduated from Med school in 1978 and many of the procedures and treatments Doctor X details here were just starting to become obsolete. It is a VERY realistic picture of hospital medicine before technology. My father was an intern in 1946, so much of Doctor X experiences were novel, although they were both on call from Friday morning to Monday.

Anyway this is a well written description of medicine at the dawn of the “ we can do something for this patient other than morphine” age, and before CT scans ( I saw the first CT scan on one of my patients at Hopkins)

This book is important for another reason. Despite all the technology, what makes a great doctor hasn't changed. Just reading his introduction to Pediatrics brought tears to my eyes. . He and the nurses recognize kind compassionate and expert docs when they see them , and you will too. ( )

In some respects, this account of an intern's year at a (disguised) hospital is out of date, with medical technology having dramatically changed, even since the time the book came out in the 1960s. On the other hand, one suspects that much of the pressure-cooker atmosphere remains, and the thin margin of life-and-death decision making, and the sheer exhaustion, remain evergreen. In any event, a very interesting and either well-read or well-edited book. Of note is that Nourse was also a skilled writer of science fiction, which may well account for something. Recommended. ( )

The candid journal of a young doctor's critical first year. Fascinating! I loved it. ( )

Based on a diary, this book tells of an intern's first year inside a hospital Although the narrative moves fluidly and with no lack of humor, it doesn't really have a storyline. Most of the characters are met for only a brief paragraph that describes their malady and how the intern dealt with it. Some stories were left hanging, as the author didn't see a patient through to the end of his hospital stay, or just didn't mention them again. Even the other interns and doctors on the staff are so sketchily presented that I had no real sense of who they were. What I did gather was how overwhelmingly demanding the work was.

Although many treatment methods in this book are surely now outdated- it being written at a time when polio was still a major threat, people routinely died of hepatitis and cancer treatment was mainly just pain management until the end- the actuality of how doctors reach a diagnosis, deal with troublesome or confusing patients, and occasionally make grave errors (being only human, after all) is probably still true today.

More at the Dog Ear Diary ( )

Surprising how much has changed in medicine since this was written - and how much is the same. ( )