The Intern Blues

The intern year is the toughest time in a doctor's life. Literally a baptism by fire, internship must turn the average green medical school graduate into a seasoned physician. The typical intern is deprived of sleep, confronted with all manner of human misery, and, at least temporarily, driven slightly insane. Robert Marion was ten years out of his own internship, and supervising a small group of pediatric interns at a major New York medical center, when he asked three of them to keep careful diaries of their impressions over the course of a year. It is the testimony of these three interns -- Andy, Mark, and Amy -- that forms the core of this book: their real-life lessons in treating very sick children, confronting child abuse and the awful human impact of the AIDS epidemic, skirting the indifference of the hospital bureaucracy, overcoming their own fears, insecurities, and constant fatigue. Their stories are harrowing and often funny, their personal triumphs unforgettable.