Postgraduate Year One: Lessons in Caring

A world-renowned clinician, teacher, and researcher in cognitive and behavioral neurology, Dr. Ken Heilman has found that stories of his own initiation into the world of doctoring are one of the best ways to engage students and trainees about the common professional, medical, and ethical challenges they will face in daily practice. The twenty-five stories gathered here span the author's first year of clinical training at Bellevue Hospital during the 1960s following his graduation from the University of Virginia School of Medicine. That year- known in the past as internship or first-year residency and now called post graduate year one- is recognized as one of the most intellectually, emotionally, and physically demanding in a physician's life. For the author, it was to hold the most valuable lessons on caring for patients and to exert the greatest lasting influence on how he practices medicine. Each story in this book conveys a core lesson about the practice of medicine and also tells a wonderful tale- about how the author contracted tuberculosis because of a colleague's carelessness, a tough nurse who was a great teacher, a cardiologist who missed a diagnosis because of his arrogance, an acid-dropping ascetic who turned tricks on the side, a fellow trainee caught in a lie, and, as timeless a story as there ever was, the utter impossibility of finding a parking spot in New York City, among others.