I love memoirs, biographies, and personal accounts of anything to do with doctors, nurses, hospitals or any kind of medical subjects. So I jumped at the chance to review this one.
Doctor Confidential by Richard Sheff, MD is a great memoir of the author's days as a medical student and intern in the 1970's at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
The chapters are broken down into the different "rotations" the author had to participate in, such as Obstetrics, Psychiatry, and Surgery. It is not only a journey through med school, but also a coming of age feel-good story of a young man morphing into a caring and compassionate doctor.
The stories in Doctor Confidential were both heartfelt and eye opening. I had to remind myself through some of the chapters that this took place in the 1970's, because even though many of the principles and practices of medicine have changed throughout the decades, the bottom line of compassion and bedside manner are timeless.
And Dr. Richard Sheff was definitely way ahead of his time in that department. From helping a woman in labor to breathe through her contractions, to extubating a dying woman so she can have one last conversation with her family, Dr. Sheff answers the question:
"What's love got to do with medicine?... Everything!"
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I really enjoyed reading about Sheff's experiences in the hospital. This was a wonderful book that took me one afternoon to breeze through. Told in layman's terms, the language was not difficult to understand, and there were plenty of footnotes to help if the medical jargon got too technical.
It's always fun to see what goes on behind the scenes, so the author's subtitle of "Secrets Behind The Veil" is very fitting.
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This book was graciously sent to me from the Cadence Marketing Group in exchange for an honest review. I was not required to give a positive review, just an honest one. I was not compensated for my review, and all opinions are my own.
