'The Real Doctor' is a real delight

If you need a light read with a dark dose of humor, we'd like to prescribe The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly: A Physician's First Year (*** out of four).

Doctor is the second memoir by Matt McCarthy, who shared his experiences as a minor-league baseball player in 2009's Odd Man Out: A Year on the Mound With a Minor League Misfit. It was around that time he started interning at New York's Columbia University Medical Center, the first year of which serves as the premise for his new book.

Two weeks out of Harvard Medical School, and fueled by a cocktail of adrenaline and coffee, McCarthy recounts what it's like to be an idealistic novice who's thrown into the deep end of a bustling hospital. Working primarily in the cardiac care unit, but dipping his toes into other areas, his days are as varied as sorting through a patient's fecal matter looking for smuggled drugs, or poking and prodding a dying woman until he can find a vein for her IV. (Thankfully, she lives.)

But as should be expected with any trial by fire, not every situation has a rosy outcome. Worn down by long hours and his failure to connect with patients on a personal level, McCarthy makes his share of rookie mistakes — some, with potentially fatal consequences for the already ill; and one that could impact his own health, in the book's most surprising turn. In some of the more wrenching passages, McCarthy must find a way to approach a woman whose mother won't recover from heart attack-induced brain trauma; and later, must cold-call a new widow to tell her her husband is dead.

Despite the taxing environment and often grim outcomes, McCarthy manages to inject levity into his writing by way of pop-culture references, lewd jokes and callbacks to the hospital's bitterly ironic tagline, "Amazing things happen here."

The main source of humor comes at his own expense, as the harried first-year resident wryly interacts with doctors and his fellow interns, and fishes for compliments from his patients. "Did you start taking the pills because of ... because of me?" McCarthy asks a former patient, as she returns to the hospital looking much healthier and in better spirits. "Honestly, no," she replies, bringing the starry-eyed miracle worker back down to earth.

As a writer, McCarthy is a more proficient storyteller than wordsmith. Real Doctor's brisk, choppy chapters tend to last only a few pages, and are sometimes overcrowded with medical terminology. And while the story, at times, can feel slight — there's not much that distinguishes McCarthy from any other overwrought, highly motivated professional — it's still an entertaining window into an unknown world for most readers.

As for aspiring doctors? Well, it could make them reconsider those med-school applications.

The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly: A Physician's First Year

By Matt McCarthy

Crown

3 stars out of four