author : Katrina S. Firlik

Firlik is a brain surgeon, and this is an account of some of the most memorable events during her seven years of residency (= "on the job training") that equipped her to do the job unsupervised.

Some of the anecdotes are frustrating, because they have no conclusion, no closure. But that's part of the point: Firlik also has no closure on these events, as the patients pass by her overworked self, into the unknown. Yet there is enough here to give some insight into the job itself, the rigours of being on call, the joyous occasions when a cure is possible and the tragedies when it isn't; and more than enough to convince me that I was entirely right when I decided at the age of 16 that, no, I didn't want to be a doctor.