No joke, I just heard that line on Grey’s Anatomy (Bailey skipped the f-bomb though). Apparently we REALLY need to respect the pancreas.
The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly is Dr. Matt McCarthy’s mostly funny but occasionally heart-breaking memoir of his first year as an intern. He takes us through rounds, nights on call, patients he couldn’t help and the patients he could. We meet the doctors who train him (or berate him), his fellow interns, and the nurses who keep it all running. He focuses on a few cases in particular, like a man named Benny who has lived in the hospital for MONTHS waiting on a transplant. A blind woman who quotes rap music to him. A patient who almost ends up with a traumatic brain injury due to a simple oversight on McCarthy’s part.
His writing is humorous, even when the subject is not. McCarthy has a terrible scare at one point — a needle prick that exposes him to HIV. Reading about the testing, the prophylactic meds they put him on (and their horrible side effects), and the affect this has on his psychological health was really moving. And through it all, he’s still working and studying endlessly to become a doctor.
I’m always interested in more information about medicine, whether it’s the endless Grey’s Anatomy reruns that keep me company while working from home, or the several fascinating books I read about The Spanish Flu this year. This book definitely falls on the more entertaining end of the spectrum, but McCarthy offers some great insights into what medicine looks like from behind the scenes.