Her Own Medicine : A Woman's Journey from Student to Doctor

Rating:
Summary: Not a book but a series of repetitive essays
Review: I am considering a career in medicine and bought this book as I hoped it would give me a different perspective on medicine - that of a woman and a member of an ethnic minority. The book is actually a collection of essays on Dr DasGupta's view of the medical community. Note it is not a book about her experiences - you will not find too much detail of patients or training. Instead Dr DasGupta puts forth at great length how she views the medical community as similar to the military, how sexist it is, and how she doesn't really want to be a part of it. Patient stories are dealt with superficially and only when they provide passing support for her arguments. The essays that make the chapters were all written at different times and so do not form a logically progressive argument even. The book is dry, political and not very insightful. The main argument (medicine=military institution) is repeated over and over. If you want a feminist treatise then buy this book(I count myself as a feminist - but that was NOT what I was looking for with this book). If you want any insight into medicine, don't buy it - instead buy Perri Klass, Melvin Konner, Robert Marion or Lisa Belkin...all MUCH better books for those interested in medicine (and Konners also deals more maturely with the problems of medicine)

Rating:
Summary: A fun read...
Review: I read this book about 2 years ago. I was at a crossroads both in a personal relationship and my medical career. It was refreshing to read that another woman in a ethnic minority had faced similar experiences and that the perception of the medical profession being comparable to that of the military profession was basically the same as mine.
I admit that it is not exactly as precise on the subject of the journey through medical school and the patient work per se, but it was still a fun read and I would recommend it to people who want to read up on a different perspective of their chosen medical path...

Rating:
Summary: Could have been better
Review: I wanted to get an in-depth view of a medical student's world. What I got, however, was a sketch of that world. Sayantani DasGupta has a lot of ground to cover and I realize that-- but she skims over way too much. We get brief glimpses of her feelings/thoughts at different stages of her schooling, glimpses of various patients, but we get nothing in depth and this is frustrating. She kept telling us how difficult it is to be a woman, to be in med school, but I wanted to see more examples of this rather than simply be told this over and over again. She clearly has strong feelings about what's wrong with medical schools and the medical community, but that is another book entirely. I wanted to hear more about her experiences and feel like I got the short end of the stick.