Review by Booklist Review
As an undergraduate, Ellen Lerner started with a major in classics and intended to go to law school and become a constitutional lawyer. An introductory course in biology and a lack of facility with Latin, however, led her to alter her course toward medical ethics (and into a certain irony, since so many medical terms are Latin or Greek). After deciding on medicine and being accepted into medical school, Lerner, a thoughtful and sympathetic person, encountered experiences in class and in the hospital that she describes in detail and binds together by making relationships--with teachers, classmates, and patients and their families--the central theme. She does not shy away from reporting her doubts and fears, and her discussion of a depressing incident just before graduation implies that she is the kind of physician anyone might wish to have. Unfortunately, her reporting of later experience betrays weakening of her wish to support the patient and a growing inclination to hold that the doctor knows best. William Beatty
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
When Rothman donned her fresh white coat on her first day of orientation at Harvard Medical School, she assumed a complex new identity. To patients, the white coat meant medical authority, whereas to Rothman it represented "a power that I was not ready to accept." Written with admirable candor and insight, her account of how she grew into her white coat during the four-year program will interest the mix of general and professional readers who enjoyed Perri Klass's similar memoir, Not an Entirely Benign Procedure. Rothman, who is now a resident in the combined pediatrics program at Boston Children's Hospital and Boston City Hospital, begins with first-year anxieties associated with classes and working on cadavers. She honestly confronts the competitiveness among her classmates and the difficulty of balancing a demanding schedule with personal relationships. She explores the excitement and glamour of being a doctor while acknowledging the awesome responsibility it entails: "I must be above human fallacy.... My mistakes and failures could have catastrophic consequences." She also writes with great sensitivity about the first patient she touches, the obnoxious patient she feels guilty for disliking, the pain of having to tell a man he has cancer and the stress and humiliation of being grilled by senior doctors. Anecdotes about herself and her classmates (they are addicted to the TV series E.R.) also add flavor to her account. Rothman ends her book admitting that, although she is now comfortable in her white coat, "I will never finish growing into my role as doctor and caregiver." Agent, Kip Kotzen. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A medical student's thoughtful and revealing chronicle of growing into the white coat of a doctor under Harvard Medical School's New Pathway system, beginning with day one of orientation and ending with graduation four years later. In the new tutorial system, which emphasizes a three-year course in patient-doctor relations, students are introduced immediately to patients, learning to take medical histories in their first year and how to perform physical exams in their second. Rothman, whose interest in medical ethics led her to medical school, flourished under this humanistic approach. Expecting that tough course work and long hours would be the toughest hurdles, she found instead that accepting the responsibility that comes with the white coat was a greater challenge. She is a careful observer and meticulous reporter, providing the kind of detail that prospective medical students will find invaluable. She gives a clear overall picture of how the program is organized and what students are expected to know and do at each stage of their education and then fills this in with chapters describing her own experiences with patients, doctors, and fellow students. While she has changed names and details, her description of these encounters and her reactions to them, especially the stories about patients, have the clear ring of truth. They're not pretty and often have no neat ending, but through them, the conscience of a compassionate doctor can be seen developing. What is refreshing about Rothman's account is its matter-of-fact style, notably lacking in whining, sensationalism, and disguised boasting. We also follow her romance with a fellow student that ends in marriage just before graduation and the promise of parallel careers to follow. This medical coming-of-age story is told with clarity, candor, and grace and would make a fine graduation present for any pre-med student. (Author tour)
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
