Overview
Intern is 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 our every assumption about medical care today. Residency—and especially the first year, called internship—is legendary for its brutality. Working eighty hours or more per week, most new doctors spend their first year asking themselves why they wanted to be doctors in the first place.
Jauhar's internship was even more harrowing than most: he switched from physics to medicine in order to follow a more humane calling—only to find that medicine put patients' concerns last. 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.
Now a thriving cardiologist, Jauhar has all the qualities you'd want in your own doctor: expertise, insight, a feel for the human factor, a sense of humor, and a keen awareness of the worries that we all have in common. His beautifully written memoir explains the inner workings of modern medicine with rare candor and insight.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
Sandeep Jauhar's story of his grueling internship in a New York City hospital bears some very superficial similarities to the first-year rigors experienced by the newbies of Grey's Anatomy, but his memoir has a realistic edge that defies the time constraints of TV writing. Jahaur entered health care with an idealism that somehow survived medical school and rote memorization, but he was emotionally unprepared for the brutality of 80-plus-hour work weeks supervised by sadistic or negligent residents. Intern puts the process through the ringer, only to emerge at the other end with surprising insights about American medicine and doctors. A well-written, provocative read.William Grimes
Rarely has a more conflicted or unpromising candidate entered the field of medicine, and this mismatch gives Intern its offbeat appeal. There are many accounts of American medical training, but none related by a narrator quite so wobbly, introspective, crisis prone and fumbling. In a book filled with colorful medical anecdotes, Dr. Jauhar's own case stands out. Half the time it's not clear whether he should be treating others or others should be treating him, which does in fact happen when he develops a herniated disc midway through his training, complicated by a deep depression associated with a rolling existential crisis. The inside look at the workings of the medical internship system is fascinating, but it cannot compete with Dr. Jauhar's own psychological adventure…—The New York Times
Vincent Lam
The story [Jauhar] tells here is antiheroic, full of uncertainty, doubt and frank disgust, aimed at both himself and, sometimes, his patients. Intern succeeds as an unusually transparent portrait of an imperfect human being trying to do his best at a tough job…In addition to telling Jauhar's own story, Intern delivers a vivid portrait of the culture of a New York City hospital, with its demanding hierarchy and sometimes indifferent cruelty. Evocative street sketches bring relief from the claustrophobic wards while echoing the medical inhumanity inside.—The New York Times Book Review
Barron H. Lerner
Jauhar writes well…Even if the old-fashioned model of internship is becoming obsolete, some of Jauhar's stories are timeless.—The Washington Post
Library Journal
Cardiologist Jauhar, a regular writer for the New York Timesand the New England Journal of Medicine, chronicles his first year in medical residency as an intern. Having resisted his family's attempts to persuade him to pursue a career in medicine, Jauhar instead pursues a Ph.D. in physics. But after a friend is diagnosed with the autoimmune disease lupus, Jauhar realizes his chosen major would enable him to have very little impact on people's lives. He decides instead to enter medical school, and upon graduation begins a residency program in a New York hospital. During most of his residency, however, Jauhar wavers in his decision to become a medical doctor. His honest and vivid account of the grueling life of a resident struggling through his first year as a doctor allows readers to see medicine from the point of view of someone wrestling with his career choice. By the end, Jauhar becomes more confident, assimilating into his role as a doctor, and developing a passion for his career in medicine-especially after becoming a patient himself. A well-written medical memoir recommended for most libraries.
—Dana Ladd