Internal Medicine - A Doctor`s Stories - Tapa blanda

[T]his book illuminates human fragility in tales both lyrical and soul-wrenching.... Holt dissects the medical experience in exquisite and restrained prose.--Danielle Ofri

Whether or not you classify this collection of nine stories as nonfiction, they ring true in both details and spirit, starting with a doctor's evolution from the first night on call as an intern and ending with ethical questions that a physician ponders 40 months later, his residency complete... Dr. Holt never settles for easy answers, and the questions he poses--reflecting the frequent uncertainties of doctors and patients alike--will leave readers thinking long after the final page is turned.--Alice Cary

Holt, who also holds a master's in fiction writing and a PhD in literature, is an excellent story teller... [T]he portrait Holt offers is artful, unfailingly human, and understandable.--Dennis Rosen

Holt's new collection of stories, captures the feelings of a young doctor's three-year hospital residency--the powerlessness, the exhaustion, the chaotic and seemingly endless shifts, and above all, the intensity of being with people in moments of extremity--better than anything else I have ever read... Holt's unadorned prose and pitch-perfect dialogue contribute to the realism of these stories. At times they have the atmosphere of a hospital version of film noir, the narrator sounding as tough as Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe in his effort to be efficient and unflappable... Anyone who's considering becoming a doctor, or anyone who wants to know what's at the core of a doctor's initiation, should read this book.--Susan Okie

The author of In the Valley of the Kings presents nine essays from a doctor's residency—from a life-and-death effort to keep an oxygen mask on a claustrophobic patient to a nightmarish struggle to convince a man he has cancer to the lounge of a snowbound hospital where doctors swap yarns through the night. 15,000 first printing.