Book Review: This Won't Hurt a Bit

Michelle Au describes her first years in medical school as "like a chain gang of 150 convicts locked together at the ankles for four years. Every single class, every exam... we attended together." Her introduction to clinical practice is a Psychiatry rotation, where, on her first day, a patient asks if she thinks he's crazy. "What can you really say to a patient who asks you that? Especially after hearing him tell you the story he has... about strangers on the street plotting to kill him, because they can see the power that he wields and are jealous of his third eye? I mean, really, what am I supposed to say?"

This Won't Hurt a Bit (And Other White Lies): My Education in Medicine & Motherhood is Au's memoir of her years in medical school and residency, a time of long hours, little money, overwhelming stress - and that's before she discovers she's pregnant with her first child. Au writes honestly about the ordeal of medical training, the self-doubt that afflicts young doctors, and the difficulties of balancing family and career, a problem for any working mother that is intensified when the career is as all-consuming as medicine. But she also describes the doctors, teachers, and especially the patients who have contributed to her learning and her life. Au's funny, irreverant tone makes even the most disturbing and heart-rending anecdotes readable, and lends a sense of humanity to an often idolized and misunderstood profession. - Michelle (Sunset)