Harvard Med: The Story Behind America's Premier Medical School and the Making of America's Do Ctors

Langone's loose, brisk narrative should be required reading for anyone seeking admission to Harvard Medical School, and it will enlighten anyone curious about how doctors are made. A former medical journalist with Discover, he is refreshingly candid (``right now... the third-year students are strictly fumblers and dilettantes, ham-handed impostors even...''). He sits in on tutorials, lab work and dissections of cadavers; interviews faculty and the school's director of admissions; and follows a dozen or so students as they cope with grueling pressures and rites of passage. He also frankly discusses the school's ``glass ceilings,'' which bar women and minorities from full professorships and departmental chairs, and he explores how Harvard Medical School students, residents and faculty, as well as affiliated hospitals and clinics, are attempting to close the gap between caregivers and patients by teaching empathy, disease prevention and health promotion. (June)