The House of God

by Samuel Shem

She spoke of “the major problem you will face in your internship: parking.”

Medicine is ‘bedrest until complications,’ Blue Cross payments for holding hands,

In the middle of all this crap with the Yellow Man, this guy comes into the Emergency Room and I . . . I couldn’t handle it. I offered him five dollars if he’d go home. He took it and left.”

Trash your illusions, and the world will beat a pathway to your door.”

“You know what they say: It’s better to have dyspareuned than never to have pareuned at all.”

I hoped against hope that when he died, he would die neat. His death was a mess.

A bepimpled intellectual prodigy with few social skills—just the kind of draft pick the BMS adored—789

I remember getting a letter—“I’m alone on call in a VA in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and if it weren’t for your book I’d kill myself.”