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When I was a nursing student, I was sitting at the nurses station and writing a rough draft of my patients notes for my supervising RN to read through before I put them in the file. One of the medical interns sat down next to me and asked me if I'd read The House of God. I thought he might have been trying to convince me to join some obscure religion. I hadn't, I warily told him so, and he threw his hands up in the air and said "You have to, you need to read it, it's real life put down on paper, and it will stop you going mad. Or make you feel better about going mad when you do get there. It certainly made me feel better about going mad. They tell us we should read it, but they never tell you nurses and that's a crime. So I'm telling you now. Have a good shift!". Then he bounced up out of his chair and disappeared to wherever doctors go when they're not making the place look messy and stealing the charts just before you need them.
It took me a while to track down this book, but now I have I can absolutely say that this intern was one hundred percent right. This book IS real life down on paper. Everything in it (with regards to patients, emotional turmoil, medical care, and bowel runs) is totally relate-able. It may be dated (all these references to the Nixon era make only the vaguest sense to anybody in my generation who is not American) but it is still relevant, and after my first year out, it was cathartic to read this book and see that it isn't just me. Other people before me have felt the same helplessness and cynicism and experienced the same highs and lows, regardless of when they started or whether they're medical or nursing or anything else.
And the Laws of the House of God? Are hilariously, wonderfully, absolutely true.
It took me a while to track down this book, but now I have I can absolutely say that this intern was one hundred percent right. This book IS real life down on paper. Everything in it (with regards to patients, emotional turmoil, medical care, and bowel runs) is totally relate-able. It may be dated (all these references to the Nixon era make only the vaguest sense to anybody in my generation who is not American) but it is still relevant, and after my first year out, it was cathartic to read this book and see that it isn't just me. Other people before me have felt the same helplessness and cynicism and experienced the same highs and lows, regardless of when they started or whether they're medical or nursing or anything else.
And the Laws of the House of God? Are hilariously, wonderfully, absolutely true.
