User:Balpi002/Intern: A Doctor's Initiation

Intern: A Doctor's Initiation is a nonfiction autobiographical account of Dr. Sandeep Jauhar's first year as an medical intern, fresh from medical school. In this autobiographical novel, Jauhar is interning at a New York Hospital. Jauhar kept records of his days during his time in training by writing in a journal about his days, patients, and interaction with other doctors. The book has 21 chapters, all regarding disillusionment as a medical student and experiencing imposter syndrome.

Background
Sandeep Jauhar wrote in a journal everyday of his internship, documenting his feelings and experiences between doctors and patients. As Jauhar doubted his career in medicine, he felt drawn to journalism. He had always felt a connection to the career, but because of strict, patriarchal family dynamics, he was pushed away from the idea. He explained in the novel that his father would detest the arts as a career because it is not financially stable. Before entering medical school, the author was accepted into the scientific journalism fellowship called the AAAS Mass Media Fellowship, where he would be sent to write for TIME Magazine in Washington, D.C. . When Jauhar finished medical school and left for an internship in a New York hospital, he continued to write as a scientific contributor to TIMES Magazine. A few years after his internship, he met with a publisher who showed interest in him writing a bildungsroman, "a memoir about [Sandeep Jauhar] medical education."

Disillusionment
A major theme in Intern: A Doctor's Initiation is the dark, looming of disillusionment. Jauhar expressed in many medical situation in the book that he feels anxious, alone, and lost. As Jauhar would do rounds with his patients, each medical procedure he did made him feel uneasy and ill-prepared. One of the first experiences he describes his anxiousness is when he in a consolation with his patient Dr. Washington, an older woman who was a obstetrician gynecologist. This visit was the first time Jauhar performed a rectal exam. He explains that he is not sure of what he needs to feel or say because he is so unprepared and amateur at the procedure. Another example of Jauhar's disillusionment is his embarrassment in front of others. In a procedure of inserting arterial lines, while another intern was able to successfully do the procedure, Jauhar was not able to. He wrote in his journal that he felt like a "shell of a resident." He felt alone in his cluelessness and was not sure if anyone was able to relate to him.

Medical Education
In the time of Jauhar's internship, these students were required to work days on end on call to respond quickly to emergencies. In the novel, Jauhar expressed that the overwhelming work as a doctor was tiring and felt impossible, he admitted that "If you did everything, you felt overwhelmed, if you didn’t, you felt guilty.” This issue in medical education was changed in the 1980s, where a limit on hours given to interns/student working in the hospital was signed into law. These students were given less hours in order to lessen the burden of fatigue and to improve patient care. Jauhar criticizes the limitation because he believes that both options have shortcomings . he explains that those students who now are given less hours start each shift with new cases, not able to follow a case for several days. This can cause incomplete training in medicine and also cause training physicians to see patients as cases and not humans. The medical education criticism in the novel also touches on how doctors become apathetic towards their patients. When treating a seizure patient that was experiencing worsening seizures, Jauhar admits that he had felt his confidence increasing as he understood that he was "fighting a losing battle." This, in Jauhar's point of view, can show how doctor's see patients as test dummies, able to manipulate the situation to learn and experience.

Critical Reception
Intern: A Doctor's Initiation has been critically read by both those in or interested in the medical profession and also by those interested in human behavior and connection. The book is applauded for the vivid story telling of real-life clinical decision-making in the The Journal of the American Medical Association. Also, Jauhar is received with positive feedback in regards to his medical memoir, showing readers the humanistic view of doctors and the struggles of mental health as a health care professional