The name of this blog is merely a reference to the infamous book penned by "Samuel Shem" (aka Samuel Bergman, The House of God. I read this book as I prepared to apply to medical school - actually, I was commanded to read it by my peers. "If you want to apply to medical school, you HAVE to read it!" Reading it reminded me of reading Jane Austen. I thought it was amusing, but it felt so tethered in the 1970's, that I considered it a period piece. Nearly 15 years later, I am a practicing physician. I did an internal medicine residency, heard the terms "turfing," "wall," and "sieve." In learning to speak "medical," I learned not just the real names for muscles and how to improve someone's potassium, but the slang terms listed in Shem's book. So that part of Shem's novel checks out. What I found so dated in his book was the silly personal lives of the characters. Who has sex in a supply closet or a call room? Nasty.
Flash forward to the late 1990's-current. ER, which began as a respectable show, suddenly had helicopters landing on people. Grey's Anatomy had more sex in the hospital than gall bladders removed. House? People began to request "Dr. House" to see them when I can't explain EXACTLY why they passed out. We are not Hollywood. We are limited people, working for you, at some of the worst moments of your life. We can be uneven, some days when we have the Midas touch, other days when we have shit finger. But, most of use have no idea what else we would possibly do it we weren't your doctors.
All of these are real stories. Welcome to our world.
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