Product Description

White Coat is Dr. Ellen Lerner Rothman's vivid account of her four years at Harvard Medical School. Describing the grueling hours and emotional hurdles she underwent to earn the degree of M.D., Dr. Rothman tells the story of one woman's transformation from a terrified first-year medical studen into a confident, competent doctor.

Touching on the most relevant issues in medicine today--such as HMOs, aIDS, and assisted suicide--Dr. Rothman recounts her despair and exhilaration as a medical student, from the stress of exams to th hard-won rewards that came from treating patients.

The anecdotes in White Coat are funny, heartbreaking, and at times horrifying. Each chapter taes us deeper into Dr. Rothman's medical school experience, illuminating her struggle to walk the line between too much and not enough intimacy with her patients. For readers of Perri Klass and Richard Selzer, Dr. Rothman looks candidly at medicine and presents an unvarnished perspective on a subject that matters to us all. White Coat opens the infamously closed door between patient and doctor in a book that will change the way we look at our medical establishment.

In White Coat, Ellen Rothman offers a vivid account of her four years at one of the best medical schools in the country, and opens the infamously closed door between patient and doctor. Touching on today's most important medical issues -- such as HMOs, AIDS, and assisted suicide -- the author navigates her way through despair, exhilaration, and a lot of exhaustion in Harvard's classrooms and Boston's hospitals to earn the indisputable title to which we entrust our lives.

With a thoughtful, candid voice, Rothman writes about a wide range of experiences -- from a dream about holding the hand of a cadaver she had dissected to the acute embarrassment she felt when asking patients about their sexual histories. She shares her horror at treating a patient with a flesh-eating skin infection, the anxiety of being "pimped" by doctors for information (when doctors quiz students on anatomy and medicine), as well as the ultimate reward of making the transformation and of earning a doctor's white coat.

For readers of Perri Klass, Richard Selzer, and the millions of fans of ER, White Coat is a fascinating account of one woman's journey through school and into the high-stakes drama of the medical world.

In White Coat, Ellen Rothman offers a vivid account of her four years at one of the best medical schools in the country, and opens the infamously closed door between patient and doctor. Touching on today's most important medical issues -- such as HMOs, AIDS, and assisted suicide -- the author navigates her way through despair, exhilaration, and a lot of exhaustion in Harvard's classrooms and Boston's hospitals to earn the indisputable title to which we entrust our lives.

With a thoughtful, candid voice, Rothman writes about a wide range of experiences -- from a dream about holding the hand of a cadaver she had dissected to the acute embarrassment she felt when asking patients about their sexual histories. She shares her horror at treating a patient with a flesh-eating skin infection, the anxiety of being "pimped" by doctors for information (when doctors quiz students on anatomy and medicine), as well as the ultimate reward of making the transformation and of earning a doctor's white coat.

For readers of Perri Klass, Richard Selzer, and the millions of fans of ER, White Coat is a fascinating account of one woman's journey through school and into the high-stakes drama of the medical world.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #594302 in Books
• Published on: 2000-04-13
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .1 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

From Amazon.com
Books about the education of physicians are so plentiful they practically constitute their own subgenre. For starters, there's Melvin Konner's Becoming a Doctor, A Not Entirely Benign Procedure by Perri Klass, and several books by Robert Marion (including Learning to Play God, Rotations, and The Intern Blues). Joining the field is Ellen Lerner Rothman with a memoir of her years at Harvard Medical School. It's a workman-like account of learning the art and science of medicine in the era of HMOs, in which paperwork seems to have replaced healing as the main product of hospital bureaucracy. Rothman wrestles with the dilemmas of compassion and objectivity as she encounters patients, learns procedures, and prepares to don the white coat that symbolizes physician competence in a world of backless patient gowns.

Of particular interest are Rothman's accounts of the rabid fan base among medical students for a certain top-rated medical TV drama; they study its jargon almost as exhaustively as they review the physiology of the heart. "It was just like on ER," she notes following an encounter with a traumatic cardiac arrest that ended with the patient's death. The lines between pop culture and science are ever blurred. --Patrizia DiLucchio

From Publishers Weekly
When Rothman donned her fresh white coat on her first day of orientation at Harvard Medical School, she assumed a complex new identity. To patients, the white coat meant medical authority, whereas to Rothman it represented "a power that I was not ready to accept." Written with admirable candor and insight, her account of how she grew into her white coat during the four-year program will interest the mix of general and professional readers who enjoyed Perri Klass's similar memoir, Not an Entirely Benign Procedure. Rothman, who is now a resident in the combined pediatrics program at Boston Children's Hospital and Boston City Hospital, begins with first-year anxieties associated with classes and working on cadavers. She honestly confronts the competitiveness among her classmates and the difficulty of balancing a demanding schedule with personal relationships. She explores the excitement and glamour of being a doctor while acknowledging the awesome responsibility it entails: "I must be above human fallacy.... My mistakes and failures could have catastrophic consequences." She also writes with great sensitivity about the first patient she touches, the obnoxious patient she feels guilty for disliking, the pain of having to tell a man he has cancer and the stress and humiliation of being grilled by senior doctors. Anecdotes about herself and her classmates (they are addicted to the TV series E.R.) also add flavor to her account. Rothman ends her book admitting that, although she is now comfortable in her white coat, "I will never finish growing into my role as doctor and caregiver." Agent, Kip Kotzen.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
A medical student's thoughtful and revealing chronicle of growing into the white coat of a doctor under Harvard Medical School's New Pathway system, beginning with day one of orientation and ending with graduation four years later. In the new tutorial system, which emphasizes a three-year course in patient-doctor relations, students are introduced immediately to patients, learning to take medical histories in their first year and how to perform physical exams in their second. Rothman, whose interest in medical ethics led her to medical school, flourished under this humanistic approach. Expecting that tough course work and long hours would be the toughest hurdles, she found instead that accepting the responsibility that comes with the white coat was a greater challenge. She is a careful observer and meticulous reporter, providing the kind of detail that prospective medical students will find invaluable. She gives a clear overall picture of how the program is organized and what students are expected to know and do at each stage of their education and then fills this in with chapters describing her own experiences with patients, doctors, and fellow students. While she has changed names and details, her description of these encounters and her reactions to them, especially the stories about patients, have the clear ring of truth. Theyre not pretty and often have no neat ending, but through them, the conscience of a compassionate doctor can be seen developing. What is refreshing about Rothman's account is its matter-of-fact style, notably lacking in whining, sensationalism, and disguised boasting. We also follow her romance with a fellow student that ends in marriage just before graduation and the promise of parallel careers to follow. This medical coming-of-age story is told with clarity, candor, and grace and would make a fine graduation present for any pre-med student. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.