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Intern: A Doctor's Initiation

Sandeep Jauhar (Goodreads Author)

3.72 · Rating details · 3,981 ratings · 310 reviews

Intern is Dr. 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 his every assumption about medical care today. Residency--and especially its first year, the internship--is legendary for its brutality, and Jauhar's experience was even more harrowing than most. He switched from physics to medicine ...more

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Paperback, 299 pages

Published January 6th 2009 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (first published December 26th 2007)

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Jun 22, 2010 Lobstergirl rated it it was ok

Recommended to Lobstergirl by: Dagobert O'Gara

Shelves: got-rid-of, memoir

Dr. Jauhar seems like a pretty narcissistic douche. His personal career struggles, the difficulty he has in deciding what profession to pursue, and his moderate depression and ennui in the midst of stressful situations are, he will be surprised to hear, much less interesting than the anecdotes of the hospital patients under his care. His and his brother's (also a physician) douchiness are not unexpected given their parents' attitudes: get out of academia, where you will never be successful but w
Dr. Jauhar seems like a pretty narcissistic douche. His personal career struggles, the difficulty he has in deciding what profession to pursue, and his moderate depression and ennui in the midst of stressful situations are, he will be surprised to hear, much less interesting than the anecdotes of the hospital patients under his care. His and his brother's (also a physician) douchiness are not unexpected given their parents' attitudes: get out of academia, where you will never be successful but will languish as an underpaid post-doc for decades (Jauhar got a PhD in physics before going into medicine); go into medicine, which will bring prestige upon you and us, and then go into cardiology, which will bestow greater prestige and wealth than internal medicine. Jauhar admits going into cardiology for these reasons, so points for being honest, I guess.

Nor does the medical profession as a whole come off well here. The message seems to be: if any crumb of kindness, understanding, or compassion gets dropped your way from a doctor, treasure it, for they are few and far between.

There's a weird, casual misogyny in the book, odd for someone only in his forties. Rachel is "a knockout blonde." Nancy is "a good-looking blonde." A nurse is stocky, with "a broad Filipino mug and a mop of ink black hair" and stale breath. Caitlin, "a very attractive brunette," "had great breasts." As she explained to him the ins and outs of his oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital. Does Caitlin like being referred to in this manner? After all, she must know by now. There aren't that many doctors who could have explained Dr. Jauhar's fellowship to him in the Sloan-Kettering cafeteria that day. Or perhaps she was a composite of all the other great-breasted women doctors at Sloan-Kettering. Dr. Jauhar writes about all these knockout blonds and great breasts right on the eve of getting engaged to his girlfriend Sonia. Dr. Jauhar is concerned about marrying Sonia, because Sonia too is a doctor, and he worries about a two-doctor marriage. But he finds comfort in a study that found that "women in dual-doctor marriages spent more time rearing children, more often arranged their work schedules to fulfill family responsibilities, worked fewer hours, and earned less money."

Three stars for the medical stories, one star for the douchiness. ...more

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Dec 04, 2018 India M. Clamp rated it really liked it · review of another edition

“Intern: A Doctor’s Initiation” is at times shouting in your face with brutal “hot pink” honesty bringing back memories of me and my brother accidentally seeing a cadaver at Rio Hondo Hospital. This memory was similar to what made Dr. Jauhar vomit in-between patients. “Cookbook medicine” is the generic term he applies to the medical practice and not something he wishes to emulate. “Creare fabulis” and drones mimic.

“One thing I never thought seriously about was becoming a doctor. In fact, for mo ...more

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Mar 22, 2012 Adrienne rated it did not like it · review of another edition

I almost didn't even bother finishing this book--the author's attitude grated and grated to the point where I was actively angry with him. His self-absorption knows no ends. Everything--including the woe felt by a young man diagnosed with testicular cancer--comes back to his comparatively trivial existential angst about his career choice, which gets incredibly old before the book is even a third of the way finished. And if the self-absorption isn't enough? Worry not--you get a nice heaping helpi ...more

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Sep 05, 2009 Shelah rated it liked it · review of another edition

I'll admit that I'm curious about the lives of the doctors who care for me and my family. How many kids do they have? Where do they go on vacation? Are they happy? But if they're not happy, do I really want to know? In Intern, Sandeep Jauhar describes the crisis he went through during his intern year (the first year after medical school-- a hellish, hazing sort of year when doctors are on call every third or fourth night and work LONG hours the other days). It's an interesting, well-written book ...more

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Apr 14, 2009 Michelle rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2009, owned-but-given-away, memoirs-bios

This book was different than I had expected it to be. I had expected it to be funnier than it was...more along the lines of "The Nanny Diaries" but for doctors.

That said, I still enjoyed the book. As others have said, Dr. Jauhar's writing style is sensitive and insightful, but also a bit self-indulgent at times. After all, most professionals have moments of doubt, have major hurdles to overcome in their education or when they are a rookie, and will continue to have hurdles through their careers. ...more

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Oct 29, 2017 Lori Anderson rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, couldn-t-finish, memoir, social-issues, medical

I did not like this book. I did not like the author, although I have never met him. He may be quite a wonderful person but it is apparent after reading "Intern" that he is not a very good doctor -- and he knows it.

Dr. Jauhar held a PhD in Physics, and I can understand that amount of work and time it takes to accomplish this as one of my sons is a PhD in Physics from Yale. I understand medical school because I went through pre-med at University of Virginia, then took a year off to raise money to I did not like this book. I did not like the author, although I have never met him. He may be quite a wonderful person but it is apparent after reading "Intern" that he is not a very good doctor -- and he knows it.

Dr. Jauhar held a PhD in Physics, and I can understand that amount of work and time it takes to accomplish this as one of my sons is a PhD in Physics from Yale. I understand medical school because I went through pre-med at University of Virginia, then took a year off to raise money to continue on to medical school. I graduated high school, served in the Air Force, and then went to college, so being an older student definitely clouded any life-changing decision I made, such as whether or not to continue in 1998 to medical school, knowing it would be likely I wouldn't have a child due to the length of time of school, internship, specialization, setting up practice, etc. I also was well aware that a large number of medical students end up not even liking medicine once they're faced with the idiocy of 30-hour nights and an inability to truly help anyone because of insurance, bureaucracy, Big Pharma, etc etc.

So I get it. I get it, Sandeep. I do.

However, I don't know why you know all these things, know you were sub-par at so much (and admitted as much yourself in your book), and yet kept plodding on. Truly, plodding. The perfect word for someone who rarely seemed to show up on time anywhere and who, although determined to be a cardiologist, admits not rushing to Codes. I don't understand you, Dr. Jauhar. I truly don't.

Beyond that, we have how unlikeable you are. You say so yourself! You are so down on yourself I don't know how you see up! Add to that your misogyny, your repugnant descriptions of your PATIENTS, your "should I/shouldn't I" line constantly nattering along in the background -- I couldn't stand to be around you and I would never allow you to treat me.

You do a decent job of exposing what most medical memoirists do -- the health care system is broken, and the medical school training is broken -- but you are so very difficult to feel sorry for. Watching you carry your angst on your shoulders, it's difficult to imagine why you stayed a doctor! But then I'll talk about that in my review of your second book, "Doctored".

I got through it, but I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone at all. ...more

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Feb 19, 2017 audrey rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: nyc, us-nonfiction, california-eats-its-young, berkeley, auto-and-biography

200 pages of wibbling about whether to be a doctor, 100 pages of wibbling about whether everyone thinks he's a good doctor or not. Along the way he seems pretty terrible at doctoring. ...more

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Sep 18, 2018 Koren rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: medical, medicine

What is it like to be an intern in a big hospital in New York? According to this doctor it is not much fun. I cant imagine a job being more stressful than what these future MD's go through. This book is at its best when he is talking about individual patients and I wish he could have gone deeper into their histories but the truth is he does not have time to treat the whole patient and is often dealing with several emergencies at once. He does not have confidence in his abilities and often questi ...more

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Nov 20, 2009 Mazola1 rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

A great trial attorney once told me that a plaintiff's attorney should never leave a nurse on the jury. His reasoning was that nurses make unsympathetic jurors because the suffering they see in their jobs makes them jaded and insensitive. A kernel of truth lies at the heart of that stereotype. The same kernel of truth provides much of the dramatic tension in Sandeep Jauhar's insightful memoir about his medical training. Dr. Jauhar's story is not only the story of his struggle to learn his craft, A great trial attorney once told me that a plaintiff's attorney should never leave a nurse on the jury. His reasoning was that nurses make unsympathetic jurors because the suffering they see in their jobs makes them jaded and insensitive. A kernel of truth lies at the heart of that stereotype. The same kernel of truth provides much of the dramatic tension in Sandeep Jauhar's insightful memoir about his medical training. Dr. Jauhar's story is not only the story of his struggle to learn his craft, it is also the story of some of the thorniest problems confronting modern medicine.

In many ways, Dr. Jauhar was not the typical young, aggressive, and driven intern. Never entirely sure he wanted to be a doctor, he nonetheless succumbed to family pressures, and enrolled in medical school after having earned a PhD in physics, specializing in research on quantum dots. His older brother was already a resident, and was brash, self-confident and assertive -- all the things that the far more cerebral Sandeep was not.

At the outset of his internship, Jauhar was afraid that medical training would make him insensitive, that he would become like many of the interns and residents he saw, who brushed off the suffering and tragedy that they saw every day, and even made fun of their sick and dying patients. He also feared he would never overcome his lack of knowledge and confidence. More a thinker than a doer, Jauhar found it hard to jump in and make decisions and take charge of the treatment of his patients. Jauhar's book tells the story of how his year of internship transformed him from a fearful beginner to a doctor with confidence and skills.

I read Intern not long after reading The Intern Blues. The contrast between the two books is striking. The Intern Blues is raw and immediate. Basically, the contemporaneous thoughts of three interns speaking into a tape recorder, it has all the grit and rough reality of battlefield notes. Intern is a far more composed, nuanced and cooler look at internship, thoughtfully described in hindsight. Jauhar has distilled the experience down to its essence. For example, rather than describing the frantic pace, exhaustion and hard work of internship in hectic detail, he instead writes in spare prose that he slept through a performance of a Mozart concert, and at his apartment, "the mail was piling up; the newspaper went unread; clothes needed to be laundered."

Much of Jauhar's journey and struggle is interior. He agonizes about how the lack of time keeps him from treating his patients as people with feelings, he worries about how his lack of experience and skill causes him to hurt his patients with unnecessary or bungled procedures. He wonders if it's right for doctors to pressure patients into consenting to procedures the patients don't really want, but the doctor thinks is necessary, such as the insertion of a feeding tube or the placement of a breathing tube for mechanical ventilation. Many of these procedures are painful, and often they don't treat the underlying disease, they just make the patient miserable until their inevitable death. As Jauhar puts it, "In medicine, I had learned, there is often a fine line between the barbaric and the compassionate." Dr. Juahar's book illustrates that essential fact, and reminds us that the best doctors are those that learn how to stay on the right side of that line, even as the availability of modern technology and the pressure to "do something" often nudge the doctor in the opposite direction.

While perhaps many, if not most, interns look back on the experience as a year of horror and as something they would not want to repeat, Dr. Jauhar comes to a different conclusion. While many doctors would disagree, Jauhar concludes that although his internship was marked by depression, gratuitous suffering and feelings of hoplessness, "there probably isn't a better way to learn medicine."

Jauhar felt that internship toughened, but coarsened him, that he learned to withstand pressure, to think schematically, to use his hands, to simplify, to make big decisions. Worried at the beginning that his "ruminative nature" would impair him as a doctor, he instead came to see that his unwillingness to act reflexively made him a better doctor. But the biggest lesson he learned was that medicine is "a glorious, quirky, inescapably human enterprise, with contentious debates, successes and failures, villains and heroes, oddities, mysteries, absurdities, and profundities."

Jauhar calls internship "the toughest year of my life," but says that he was glad he went through it, and that sometimes he actually envies new interns for a moment. Maybe that's because internship transformed him the way heat transforms steel. He says that although medical training probably doesn't need to be as painful as it used to be, and perhaps still is, "it probably has to retain a certain degree of wretchedness to serve its purpose." Dr. Jaurhar's wonderful memoir is a rich and revealing look at this wonderful, confounding and all too human wretchedness. ...more

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Feb 03, 2018 Lara rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir, science-medicine

I love medical memoirs, but I agree with @Lobstergirl; there’s this weird, casual misogyny that permeates the whole book. Every single woman is a “pretty blonde” or a “knockout.” His colleague Caitlin is "a very attractive brunette” with “great breasts.” He describes a woman whose husband is dying as sensual. Not only is it unnecessary, but it’s just bizarre. I really enjoyed the book, but I have no idea how Jauhar’s constant sexualization of women made it past his editor. ...more

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Jul 28, 2019 Katie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A brutally (almost shockingly so) honest look at a doctor's first year of residency, the internship year. The "bitch" year, the personal assistant year, the abused newbie year.

This author is the opposite of everyone who always knew they wanted to be a doctor. He had a PhD in physics, and then had some experience as a journalist before coming into medicine. He was never sure through the course of the book that this is what he wanted to do. That's a tough place to be in, given the nonstop, sleep- A brutally (almost shockingly so) honest look at a doctor's first year of residency, the internship year. The "bitch" year, the personal assistant year, the abused newbie year.

This author is the opposite of everyone who always knew they wanted to be a doctor. He had a PhD in physics, and then had some experience as a journalist before coming into medicine. He was never sure through the course of the book that this is what he wanted to do. That's a tough place to be in, given the nonstop, sleep-deprived, overworked environment of residency. He described medicine as "bereft of beauty"... mechanical, dehumanizing.

This is one of those memoirs where I'm wondering if the author's friends and family are still speaking to him...it was that honest!

Some telling and terrifying tidbits about medicine: all those numerous tests you get are to protect the doctor, not so much to help you.

Residency is like "having a final every day of your life" (p. 100). Imagine this. Imagine how desensitized you would get to the pressure.

When a family orders "heroic measures" to be done to a 92-year old parent who is on their way to death quickly and with 100% certainty, doctors and nurses will unofficially and unspokenly do a "slow code" (i.e. drag their feet when "rushing" to the patient to perform the "heroic measures"... take their time, do the CPR inefficiently, etc. I actually think this is a good thing because people are going to die, and prolonging their life like this can be torture, and is sometimes done for unethical reasons like to keep pilfering their Social Security checks, but, let's be real--it's the letter and not the spirit of the law).

The biggest brain twist of this whole book for me was the author's musings about "what are we even doing here?" with hospitals in general. He said, for the most part, people get better on their own--the body has a remarkable way of re-calibrating itself. Or they don't, and they die anyway, despite what the doctors and nurses do. But for all the in-between... all the tests, all the IV's, all the catheters and monitors and cat scans and MRIs... well - the author wonders how much of that really makes a difference in the big picture. I'd never thought of hospitals and emergency care on this "macro" scale before, and it's interesting, terrifying, alarming. ...more

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Aug 28, 2016 Caitlyn rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I was bummed I accidentally deleted my first review!

I will preface this that I am a physician - about five years out of internship. I generally have avoided medical memoirs or medical books in general but this was on my bfs bookshelf so I picked it up. I hate overly grandiose memoirs of medicine and for that reason I liked this book. This book felt real. I doubt its a story that anyone else outside of medicine could truly appreciate though. Medical training is such a unique experience and I thi I was bummed I accidentally deleted my first review!

I will preface this that I am a physician - about five years out of internship. I generally have avoided medical memoirs or medical books in general but this was on my bfs bookshelf so I picked it up. I hate overly grandiose memoirs of medicine and for that reason I liked this book. This book felt real. I doubt its a story that anyone else outside of medicine could truly appreciate though. Medical training is such a unique experience and I think that is why the bad reviews are so popular on here.
To me there was nothing narcissistic about the author. He seemed like a real intern.... struggling to get through the nightmare of checking boxes. I think the hardest thing about intern year or now second year when duty hour restrictions are less strict isn't the sleep deprivation --- although thats not fun--- it's the check box, menial jobs that make up the basis for the intern year and sometimes residency. To go through every day thinking a secretary could do the majority of your job. Of course there is some learning and some decision making and some interesting moments but those are so far between that your exhausted and don't have the time to even think about them.

A lot of people felt that this book would be funnier - I do agree someone could write a funny book but that would be quite the spin and wouldn't sound like a realistic memoir.

Many felt that the author was narcissistic - I don't really get this either. I guess his desire to always do something else. His thoughts that the grass was always greener elsewhere and how he was constantly changing his mind. I again didn't see this as narcissistic but something that a lot of residents go through- thinking whether they made the right decision. There are many people I know and many who wrote of this online who constantly felt that everyone else had a better life. People talk about how they envied the waitress, the housekeeper, almost anyone while in residency. This was common- going to work any job seemed better.

I also think that he constantly was wanting a deeper relationship with his patients but didn't have the time. I think this also was part of his frustration and also his desire to go into psych. Thankfully there is a lot more meaningful communication with patients after intern year- some will differ int his opinion as the intern is on the front line but I really feel that while you have a lot of communiation with patients when you admit them and with some of the patients you have to see a lot- many times you don't get a chance to really talk.

Many people felt he was whiny- what i said above. I really felt that he was real.

Some don't think he was passionate enough- I don't even understand how someone can be passionate about checking boxes, doing tasks a secretary could do which is most of intern year. I think that would be insane for a self proclaimed thinker like himself to be satisfied with intern year. He was a scientist - he wanted a thinking job and intern year is not that.I have met several people in medical training who were disappointed and depressed by the lack of mental stimulation. THankfully when you get higher in medicine there is thinking! I'm glad he was happy with his decision at the end.

I was very surprised by how much I appreciated this book. I won't say enjoyed but I felt that it was accurate. I thought that the author was interesting as well. What a brave thing to do to write for the New York Times during residency!
...more

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Apr 19, 2011 Apta rated it really liked it · review of another edition

"Be not afraid of greatness: some men are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them."
William Shakespeare, "Twelfth Night"

What leads a man into the 'noble career' of medicine? The answer to that question is deeply personal and for some of us, has not yet been answered concretely.

Yet, we practice medicine every day. We make the tough decisions demanded of us, work the long hours and give it the focus it demands.

What lies in the transformation from the naive, un ...more

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Sep 24, 2009 Ellie Revert rated it liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: all

Recommended to Ellie by: good review

We have a favorite nephew, Doug, who has recently finished his intern year, and is now into his residency. The author seems to have been pulled in many directions, and was rarely sure of the wisdom of his choice of medicine. I think he truly portrayed that intern year--and how does anyone survive that?

This book is timely in that it talks about end of life care. And about DNR--DO NOT RESUSITATE. And I was reading it as Pres Obama is trying to finally settle healthcare for all Americans. Like the ...more

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Dec 28, 2012 Anna rated it really liked it · review of another edition

What a wonderful and ultimately frightening book! Continuing on my memoir kick, Jauhar's memoir about being a medical intern in a NYC hospital shows what an incredibly steep learning curve newly graduated doctors are on. It is astonishing to me how quickly Jauhar goes from knowing little in his first year as an intern to being quite competent even by the second year. He recognizes how brutal the internship is with respect to hours etc. I get the sense that the biggest casualty from tiredness is ...more

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Jun 03, 2018 Chaya Leah rated it really liked it · review of another edition

3.5 stars. I love reading healthcare provider memoirs, and especially love specific patient stories, and this book definitely had many of those. I did think at times Dr. Jauhar was too self-indulgent in his wallowing. By the halfway point of the book, I wanted to slap him and tell him to stop mourning his physics career and move on. In fact, I stopped reading the book for two months because I felt the wallowing bogged down the middle section.

I liked how he used specific patient stories to illus ...more

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Apr 07, 2020 Carrie Hinchman rated it really liked it

I love reading about medical cases, experiences, and ethics, so I did overall enjoy this book. BUT the author is a doctor who just thought going into medicine would be a good move and spent the first 3/4 of the book second guessing his career choices, which really annoyed me at times (especially as someone who is psyched to go into medicine). The last 1/4 of the book took a pleasant turn when he finally felt at peace with his decision and dove more into the type of medical writing that I enjoy.

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Dec 13, 2017 Kylee Eubanks rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Doctors, they are the people that help heal others with their knowledge. Many children dream of becoming a doctor when they are young, but do they really know what it takes to get there? Intern by Sandeep Jauhar is an autobiography nonfiction novel that tells the story of struggles on his journey to becoming a doctor.
Sandeep is the narrator in his novel Intern. He grew up in a country in Asia and has an older brother who also had the dreams of being in the medical field. His parents had the mone ...more

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Apr 08, 2018 Kristin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Jauhar tells the story of his first two years of internship in New York City, and what makes it stand out is that his path to being a doctor is different than many of the similar books I've read. He has a Ph.D. in Physics, which sounds unpleasant to me, and apparently it was to him as well, because he hadn't even finished earning that degree before he needed a switch and chose medicine. Cultural influences came into play here, as he is Indian-American and his parents expected him to be a scienti Jauhar tells the story of his first two years of internship in New York City, and what makes it stand out is that his path to being a doctor is different than many of the similar books I've read. He has a Ph.D. in Physics, which sounds unpleasant to me, and apparently it was to him as well, because he hadn't even finished earning that degree before he needed a switch and chose medicine. Cultural influences came into play here, as he is Indian-American and his parents expected him to be a scientist and marry one too, so leaving physics for medicine improved his chances at finding a fellow Indian doctor, but also made him look like a failure in their eyes for changing careers before he even started. Jauhar's older brother is a cardiologist in New York, so after getting the Ph.D. in California, he enrolled in medical school in St. Louis and earned an internship spot at the same hospital where his brother works. This is good for getting advice from big bro during the tough times, but bad in that his brother always wanted to be a doctor and was motivated to excel, whereas Jauhar battles indecision and had the legacy of his brother in front of him at every step.
I like that he balanced the book well with personal anecdotes and patient stories. Normally, I'd hope for more patient stories, but because of the issues Jauhar faces throughout those 2 years, I was more interested in normal in learning about him. From a neck injury that takes him away from one of the crucial rotations in his first year, to his budding journalism career writing articles about the hospital for the New York Times, which don't sit well with the hospital or earn him more favor in the eyes of his parents, who feel that journalism is a weak career, Jauhar's path isn't particularly smooth. Otherwise, he encounters many of the common roadblocks in internship, feelings of inadequacies when a patient dies or nearly does so, perpetual exhaustion, clashes with more senior doctors, etc. Overall, an enjoyable book and I may have to seek out some of those articles he wrote, as they sounded fascinating as well. ...more

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Jan 20, 2008 Tung rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: memoirs

The practice of medicine is endlessly fascinating because it involves people and life and death and unique medical cases. For me, Atul Gawande is the model for how to tell all of that fascination in a way that is both engaging and illuminating. Intern is Jauhar's take – a memoir of his journey from being a Physics doctoral student to his years of internship at New York Hospital. Internship is the boot camp for doctors, the exhausting period where doctors both learn their craft and test their met The practice of medicine is endlessly fascinating because it involves people and life and death and unique medical cases. For me, Atul Gawande is the model for how to tell all of that fascination in a way that is both engaging and illuminating. Intern is Jauhar's take – a memoir of his journey from being a Physics doctoral student to his years of internship at New York Hospital. Internship is the boot camp for doctors, the exhausting period where doctors both learn their craft and test their mettle, and Jauhar describes that trial period in all its glory and horror. He weaves together his mental and physical and emotional states with examples of different patients and situations during his training. I never get tired of hearing about interesting medical cases. He also does a good job of highlighting the different stressors (lack of sleep, lack of knowledge, lack of experience, etc) that contribute to the hell that is internship. And for those looking for a very personal relating of what it’s like becoming a doctor and not a clinical perspective (which Gawande’s books are more along the lines of), this is a solid candidate. For me, it led to my biggest criticism of the book: I found Jauhar completely unlikeable. For much of the book he wavered back and forth between whether or not he should be a doctor. He had become a doctor and stayed through medical school mainly because he wasn’t strong enough to stand up to his parents. And while in medical school, he relates his experience getting a summer internship in journalism and how he tried to find a way to write stuff for the New York Times. Throughout the first year of his internship, there are just pages and pages of this incessant hand-wringing of whether or not he should continue and whether or not he’s good enough. If I wanted to read about someone this wishy-washy, I’d have read something with Charlie Brown in it. And it’s clear that Jauhar is unique, and it’s not internship that causes all would-be doctors to go through this process. Jauhar relates how confident his younger brother was. He also relates an incident where he asks another intern whether or not she had any doubts about becoming a doctor and that person without hesitation answered no. In addition to this constant questioning of his career, he describes how he ended up writing a critical essay about internship that got published in the New York Times and caused him some consternation from fellow interns. The difference between Gawande and Jauhar is that when Gawande writes about issues within the practice of medicine, he does so professionally and offers potential solutions; Jauhar writes about issues as if he’s simply venting. To me, he comes off as a whining little tattletale. Overall, not a bad memoir if you can get past the emo main character. Recommended. ...more

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Aug 27, 2014 Casey rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: knowledge-is-good, memoir-writers-this-is-your-life

I didn’t expect to relate to Dr. Sandeep Jauhar: he’s a physician, while I’m an (arguably) failed academic who never considered a career in medicine because it didn’t intellectually engaging. Turns out, I’m kind of an asshole, but so is Dr. Jauhar, who got his PhD in Physics from UC Berkeley before becoming a failed academic himself, packing up, and matriculating at Washington University in Saint Louis’ Medical School. His issue with medicine is the same thing that kept me from really thinking a I didn’t expect to relate to Dr. Sandeep Jauhar: he’s a physician, while I’m an (arguably) failed academic who never considered a career in medicine because it didn’t intellectually engaging. Turns out, I’m kind of an asshole, but so is Dr. Jauhar, who got his PhD in Physics from UC Berkeley before becoming a failed academic himself, packing up, and matriculating at Washington University in Saint Louis’ Medical School. His issue with medicine is the same thing that kept me from really thinking about it: he worried about a cookbook career, in which would never really have to do much more than recall some memorized diagnoses. Some reviewers scoff at his existential ennui; I love him all the more for it.

This is probably the appropriate time for me to talk about my unmitigated obsession with medical television shows. I watch them, and then I complain about them because they’re so ludicrous. I mean, have you seen the story arc on Grey’s Anatomy where they do cutting edge research without training or control groups or informed consent. I mean, really! And then they bang in the on call room. I don’t know that much about the lives of doctors, but I can recognize that Grey’s Anatomy is probably not an accurate portrayal.

Anyway, Jauhur doesn’t bang anyone in the on call room, nor does he attempt to glamorize his chosen career in any real way. Instead, he deals with the reality of medicine: its structural issues (which are myriad), its occasional futility, and the joy found in its practice despite its flaws. Jauhar published some of the same ideas in the New York Times during his internship and residency, which is a ballsy and incredibly stupid thing to do. He got a Cardiology fellowship anyway, though, and has continued his advocacy for change in the American health care system.

I’m looking forward to reading Jauhur’s more recent book, Doctored, which considers the issues with health care in more detail. If it’s anything like the detailed discussion of the issues with informed consent in Intern, it’s sure to bring a nuanced argument to the table. ...more

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Jun 20, 2009 Sonia rated it liked it · review of another edition

I was completely in love with this book for the first few chapters. It was exactly the kind of book I needed to read at this point in my life. Jauhar is reluctant, anxious, frightened even, of starting his internship year. He is a Californian relocating to New York City, and he has a love of writing that makes him question his career choices. Sound familiar? At first sympathetic to the author, for all his indecision and all his qualms about medicine. However, about halfway through the book, I ju ...more

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Nov 19, 2014 Holly rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2014-reads, audio

An incredible book, really. I listened to the audio version and if the Overdrive listing is correct it was read by the author himself - a fact that rather astounds me as it was so well-performed: clear diction and pacing, and no shifts in volume or under-talking - and emotional, too.

It's a memoir of the author's medical education and days as an intern but it's so much more: graphic medical detail and diagnostic terminology, can-barely-look moments of near comedy, and Jauhar's aversion to bad sm ...more

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Oct 18, 2018 Freddy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Interesting spin on the path to becoming a doctor.
It kind of reminded me a little of Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential, showing you Jauhar's path to becoming a doctor. Not a lot of intrigue and a pretty straightforward read; it is enlightening. ...more

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Aug 19, 2014 Lua rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I found the author's story of his medical training to be a compelling read. I appreciated his honesty when writing about the problems inherent in the way that doctors are trained, as well as the stories that highlight the gray areas when it is unclear whether treatments are helping or hurting the patient. The author weaves his personal stories into the narrative, along with the stories of his patients. Since most of us will end up in the hospital at one point or another, with a relative or for o ...more

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Jan 21, 2009 Susan rated it liked it · review of another edition

He's a whiner, but it was still fascinating to read about the patients he met and to get a more realistic portrayal of internship/residency than you get from watching Grey's Anatomy. It renewed my commitment to steer clear of hospitals for anything short of a life-threatening emergency. I definitely respect the profession, though. ...more

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Dec 24, 2015 Leo Lakpa rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Excellent memoir of Dr. Jahur's journey of becoming a physician. Full of compelling stories of his insecurities, naiveties, and triumphs he went through during his rigorous years of residency. ...more

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Apr 06, 2016 Praneet Sachdeo rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: surprisingly-good, i-own

Story: 4 stars. (very relatable)
Narration: 3 stars.
Language: 3.5 stars.
Overall: 3.6

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Jan 07, 2019 Divya Pal Singh rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I began the book with a groan “Oh no! Another cliched story of the overworked and randy intern going through his apprenticeship in the usual flippant manner.” However, it was a pleasant change in the narrative and this turns out to be an engrossing tale of self-discovery. Here is a cynical PhD in physics deciding to pursue a career in medicine. He is confused as he weighs his options to do law or journalism (in fact, he does an internship in TIME).

He describes the gut-wrenching details of his in I began the book with a groan “Oh no! Another cliched story of the overworked and randy intern going through his apprenticeship in the usual flippant manner.” However, it was a pleasant change in the narrative and this turns out to be an engrossing tale of self-discovery. Here is a cynical PhD in physics deciding to pursue a career in medicine. He is confused as he weighs his options to do law or journalism (in fact, he does an internship in TIME).

He describes the gut-wrenching details of his internship. He went through a dark phase of clinical depression and a painful herniated intervertebral disc.

He addresses the ethical challenges of practicing medicine. How does one balance reality with the four cardinal principles of Medical ethics?
• Respect for autonomy – the patient has the right to refuse or choose their treatment.
• Beneficence – a practitioner should act in the best interest of the patient.
• Non-maleficence – to not be the cause of harm.
• Justice – concerns the distribution of scarce health resources, and the decision of who gets what treatment.

These are interlinked with the concepts of “Primum non nocere” – above all do no harm and “informed consent”.

A senior doctor astutely observes “Autonomy trumps everything if the patient has capacity, but who decides? The doctor, of course. So ultimately the patient can decide only if the doctor says so. In the end, the power structure in medicine is such that only doctors can decide whether patients have the right to exert their autonomy. And how do doctors decide? It is based on their experience, their prejudgement, their prejudice; and some doctors have the prejudice that patients cannot make medical decisions for themselves. So in these cases, paternalism rules, and it’s a slippery slope toward a situation where autonomy is always undermined.

In contrast, there was another senior doctor whose statement could have been taken out of Catch-22, “We can get them (the patients) to do whatever we want. As long as they agree with us, they’re not crazy.”

Interestingly, the medical world in America appears to be liberally peppered with doctors of Indian origin. ...more

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Oct 10, 2018 Eric rated it liked it · review of another edition

Intern inevitably invites comparrison to Atul Gawande's phenomenal books, particularly Complications, that blend narratives from the hospital floor with medical musings and professional lessons. Compared with Gawande, Dr. Jauhar conveys much more of his personal struggles, candidly discussing his failures and foibles.

Unfortunately, Jauhar writes with the awkward habit of describing women in especial physical detail. It grew from distracting to mildly disturbing to plain entertaining. Here are s ...more

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About Sandeep Jauhar

Sandeep Jauhar

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Sandeep Jauhar has written three books, all published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. His first book, "Intern: A Doctor's Initiation," was a national bestseller and was optioned by NBC for a dramatic television series.

His second book, "Doctored: The Disillusionment of an American Physician," released in August 2014, was a New York Times bestseller and was named a New York Post Best Book of 2014. It ...more