Becoming a Doctor

Physicians recount true, personal stories from their professional lives in this inspired anthology by new and known writers.

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In this poignant collection, doctors who are writers (and vice versa) relate their real-life journeys from intern to specialist, student to teacher, reflecting on the rewards, disillusionments, and triumphs encountered along the way. Featuring a wide array of distinguished voices, including Peter Kramer, Kay Redfield Jamison, Robert Coles, Lauren Slater, Sandeep Jauhar, and Perri Klass, these original stories create a vivid mural of the medical world and provide invaluable insight for both doctors in training and longtime physicians. Becoming a Doctor portrays the broad arc of a doctor’s life, from a medical student’s uneasy first encounter with a cadaver and her realization that the experience’s redemption will lie ahead in the lives saved, to a resident’s reliance on dance during her grueling year in an inner-city hospital, and a veteran doctor’s profound ruminations on what it means to really listen to a patient’s story.