Decent book with quite a few interesting anecdotes. However, the author is very strange and goes on personal tangents about people who offended him, patients he was sexually attracted to, and at one point compares having his fingers inside of a person’s abdomen during surgery to having sex in a pretty gross way.

A detailed account of what happens in the third year of a medical student’s career, almost an anthropological account in fact, seeing as the author is an anthropologist and had been for many years before he decided in his 30s to go to medical school. Very interesting look at what goes on in the minds of the doctors treating people in the hospital, and the almost dehumanising aspects of medical training, as the author observes his colleagues’ and his own advancement in the field and at the same time how their attitudes towards patients and disease change. There’s something in here to interest anthropologists, doctors and especially patients.

Recommended for anyone, regardless of professional interest; an intimate account of a student’s third year of medical school and its difficulties.