Becoming a Doctor

Lee Gutkind is the founder and editor of the literary journal Creative Nonfiction and a pioneer in the field of narrative nonfiction. Gutkind is also the editor of In Fact and Becoming a Doctor, the author of Almost Human, and has written books about baseball, health care, travel, and technology. A Distinguished Writer in Residence at Arizona State University, he lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Tempe, Arizona.

"Medical students and medical professionals will enjoy these perspectives on their profession; they will likely encounter or have encountered many of the obstacles narrated." "It seems unjust that a person should be endowed with a mind that can craft beautiful sentences and master all the information needed to graduate from medical school. But that's the case with many of the physician writers in Becoming a Doctor." -- Rachel Saslow "[Gutkind] selects 19 men and women who bravely, often lyrically, demonstrate that they are 'ordinary people engaged in an extraordinary profession.'" "Here, some of the best-known names in medical writing are joined by powerful new voices to help elucidate the mysterious and grueling transformation from non-doctor to doctor. Readers will gain insight into both the exuberance and disillusionment of physicians-in-training. A remarkable collection." -- Christine Montross, M.D., author of Body of Work: Meditations on Mortality from the Human Anatomy Lab