Roy Basch, el narrador y protagonista, y sus compañeros: Chuck, un negro que siempre lleva en su maletín una petaca de whisky; Runt, judío y muy psicoanalizado, y Potts, un emigrado del sur son brillantes licenciados de las mejores facultades de medicina, que han conseguido ser aceptados para hacer su año de prácticas en uno de los más prestigiosos hospitales, la Casa de Dios. Y en este año, que muy pronto se parecerá a la versión de una obra del marqués de Sade por los hermanos Marx, se multiplican los episodios de aprendizaje de la medicina pero también del horror, la impostura, el cientificismo más cruel e ineficaz y, sobre todo, de lo ineludible de la enfermedad y la muerte.

Loved the humor, over the top and with a lot of personality. (Often crude.) Shem clearly had fun writing this. The story lacks momentum, so it was easy to put down. But overall, the unique setting and attitude made the novel worth reading.

>‘In New York once,’ said Fats, ‘we had a contest to see how long the medical service could go without an admission. Thirty-seven hours. You shoulda seen what we sent outta there. Roy, help them. Be a WALL.’ ( )

I know this book is considered bible-ish in the medical community but I found it so sexist it was hard to read and mostly absurd. It took me a year to get through because I just didn’t want to read it. ( )

Shem's fictionalized memoir, recounting his year as an intern in a major Boston hospital, is by turns dark and depressing and cynical and ribald and wildly funny. Set against the final days of Richard Nixon's presidency, the disintegration of a formerly powerful man is reflected in the increasingly fractured and disintegrating medical intern training system of the day.

Urged to "do everything possible for every patient, every time", Shem's Roy Basch and his fellow internal medicine interns are faced with aging patients whose lives can be extended, but not improved, by the medical procedures the system (and their superiors) insist they perform. And while the elderly and often demented patients are not permitted the final rest they seek (to the extent that they are capable of seeking anything), Basch's younger patients have a horrifying tendency to expire, either from the underlying conditions that brought them to the hospital or from botched treatments that harmed instead of helped. Battling an increasingly heavy burden of despair, Basch tries everything from long-distance running to wild bouts of casual sex to utter withdrawal from emotional involvement, with varying levels of success.

He's not alone on his journey, as the novel is also filled with sharp and involving characters, including two of the most unlikely cops ever to appear on the printed page.

How he survives the year and begins the healing that will ultimately save him, makes an often fascinating, often troublesome, always compelling read. ( )

great language and imagery, consistently hilarious and horrifying, a combination that worked well for Catch-22 and works here too, though here the insanity grows slowly and steadily like a tidal wave as opposed to the screaming high plateau in Catch-22, so the effect is pretty different. ( )