The House of God

I bought this book for my boyfriend, a medical student at SUNY Downstate in Brooklyn, NY. Although I am not a medical student, I heard that this book is a must-read for men going to be doctors or are doctors. The book is supposed to give doctors a feeling of, "Yes, that is exactly how it all works" (in reference to the social/emotional/sexual interactions of being a doctor). Its not very long but it offers a lot and is cheap. I plan on reading it too!

As a healthcare provider, I can say that many of these themes are, in fact, experienced by many residents across the country. I connected with Shem, acknowledging that the humanism in medicine is the critical piece moving forward as a profession despite the litany of tests we have the capacity to order.

The book itself is a classic & should be read by any physician who came of age during the 1960s and did a residency in the 1970s. One precaution: do not trust the store's "overnight" service through UPS. I paid a substantial amount for overnight delivery (from Reno NV to Medford OR), but did not get the package until 7 days later. A trip that can be done in 6 to 8 hours should not take 168 hours!

When I read this book I was in training. It was hilarious! I could identify with so many characters and the rules. I bought it for my friend going through nursing school. Before gifting it, I reread it. I realized that it is so dated by our own political correctness that I wasn't sure I could give it to him without offending out current over correctness.
I still enjoy the 10 rules, the medical bed adjustment heights. Even the author has written a more politically correct follow up book. How pathetic we are!
I would still recommend it to a medical resident in training with a sense of humor. At all costs, avoid recommending or giving the book to non medical people or to someone with a physically ill person with whine they are struggling with an active illness.
What we need is a new version which lampoons all these doctor want to be pharmacists, physician assistants, lab technicians and so called "hospitalists " who have no clue what happens to the patients whose medications they have just totally changed with no follow up note to the caring MD. And since they have absolutely no clue about insulins except the lantus plus short acting insulin that must be taken 4 to 6 times a day (no, patients are not trained because the nurses give it all....and very few people are that compliant... Maybe 1%) we have a new disaster on our hands. Especially since over 60 percent of patients admitted to the hospital are diabetic.

The House of God should be mandatory reading for anyone in the medical field. I ordered 5 copies to give to friends. It may be old but still a keeper. the store delivery was flawless & on time as promised. I wish it was hard cover.

This was compelling. I started out hating it, and by the end, I couldn't put it down. I have a vested interest in medicine--applying to medical school--and I think reading this really puts some things into perspective. Modern debates about resident work-hours often reference this book, and I think they should.

I have no intention of reading it twice. Being made sad once was plenty. But I am glad I read it, both from an informational and an artistic point of view.

My favorite quote from this book is:
"13. The delivery of good medical care is to do as much nothing as possible."
13th absolute from The House of God.
This will always be a favorite book of mine. My brother gave it to me for Christmas MANY years ago. He admits to reading it before he gave it to me.

I know this book had some good reviews but I'm just not feeling it. It seems alot of craziness going on and
its hard to follow. I've had it for a couple of weeks now and struggle to finish it, maybe its just not my type
of book

the book is a good read, very funny ,and a book i didnt want to put down,a small amount of the medical world knowledge would be helfull but not a nesessatie,its a book i could read again and still find funny .

I'd heard about this book for years.
But how good could it really be?
Answer - it's fabulously good.
This is a brilliant book about a young doctor's reaction to starting out in the medical profession treating patients.
Clearly he chose the wrong line of work (and quickly switched to psychiatry.)
I only wondered if all interns react as he did or whether its just the ones who shouldn't have been there in the first place and had to find out the hard way.

This is a tale of what our doctors go through in their training. It is essential information, in my opinion. It is also, perhaps, the funniest book I have ever read.

Essential reading. The only problem is you can pass it on to only one person and there will be a dozen friends and family who need this book !!

This book has been touted as a really big deal and I've hear about it from so many doctors. I was very disappointed. It's filled with really crappy writing and unnecessary and gratuitous sexual scenes that are gross and add nothing to the story. The story itself is dumb and not well written. Granted I guess it captures some of the idea of residency, but its a sad excuse for a book about life as a resident and I don't know why so many people talk about it. Still it's an iconic book, for some reason, so knock yourself out if you want to waste your time reading garbage.

I've read a lot of medical novels and other books about the world of medicine, and have observed that world fairly closely through family members. Of all those books, this is the only one that I've found alternately, or even simultaneously, boring, disgusting, ridiculous and repulsive.

I was told this was sort of the "Catch-22" of medicine, an incisive and absurd satire of a beloved institution, but damn, what an atrocious book. The basic idea of there being ten highly counter-intuitive rules of medicine related by a mysterious mentor figure and illustrated by the plot is a great one, and the rules themselves are interesting and worth looking at, but it just profoundly does not hold together as a book. It is that rare work of literature that is orders of magnitude better in summary than in full. For every hard truth about the unacknowledged realities of human pain and suffering in a hospital, each surely revolutionary in its time, there are ten utterly gross misogynistic and/or racist digressions that neither serve the plot nor succeed as humor. Other reviewers warned me of this shortcoming and I thought they were being uptight, but it really does ruin the whole thing. I'm no strident stickler for political correctness, but this is not the just-this-side-of-the-line brilliance of George Carlin or Richard Pryor; it's just not funny or insightful. The occasional moments of gravity are jarring and tonally inappropriate rather than affecting. And the fact that all the mentor's rules and all new jargon coined by the author are always RENDERED IN ALL CAPS gets real tiresome real fast. The main character is what would be described in the modern parlance as a "Mary Sue", an obvious stand-in for the author who is constantly rewarded and praised by all the other characters for being intrinsically better than they are. The author is so deeply in love with himself for having written this vulgar book, I can hear him quietly chuckling through its pages. Barf.

I will add the caveat that people who have practiced medicine seem to almost across the board love and cherish this book. So if that's you, give it a shot, I guess.

As a nurse working in hospitals for 23 years I had high expectations for this book, hoping for some humorous situations that I may have experience. I have heard and made a lot of jokes myself while working, but this book is just too crude. I couldn't get past the first page without feeling like I was reading a porn novel. Also joking is one thing, but what some of these pages revealed ( after skimming through ) is outright sickening. I don't know of any of the professional people I worked with who did anything like that.
I wasted $10 dollars because it is now is the trash....I wouldn't want anyone else to read it.

I first picked up this book in 1982; I read it for a second time this week. There is little character development as the book evolves through this one resident's personal experience. Aside from the drum beat style the author uses to describe residency training, the reader gets a sense of cynicism toward medical education, the health care system, and the human condition. All of which are sadly real. I feel badly for residents. They are abused. It's true the endless stream of patients with their various needs & agendas can wear literally one out, but within the text, I looked for a sense of purpose in the main character's decision to become a doctor in the first place; I never found it. The main character would have been more interesting given a sense of direction after residency. With all due respect, I found the book superficial; I will likely not read it again. Thank you.

This in one of the worst books I've ever tried to read. It is so crude & crass, I could not get past that & put it down before I was even a quarter way through it. Only thing I've ever bought from the store that I was truly disappointed in. Don't waste your time.

A must read for pre-med students and med students alike! This book is B-23 approved!

Full Review: I read this in college. Along with the television show Scrubs, it's the most accurate portrayal of American medicine that I'm familiar with. I gave it to my father and he called me saying that he wanted to go medical school. I gave it to my mother and she called me crying, asking if my job really is as bad as Shem makes it out to be.

I think when it first came out it must have been truly shocking. Though today, with so much of medicine being patient-directed (and not physician-directed), I think you could look as this as a quaint little black mark on American history -- like the old cartoon cigarette commercials, or the movie "Freaks".

Yeah but the thing is...a ton of this still rings true. The essence of medical care continues to be placement. Gomers still, without fail, go to ground. Any medical student who doesn't triple my time is worth his or her weight in gold.

There's a rumor that the Fat Man was fired from his position due to his indiscretions which were detailed in this book, which is a shame. I continue to learn from him even at this stage in my career. A must read for pre-med students and med students alike! This book is B-23 approved!

Pros: Price; length; content
Cons: None

This book started off strong. I did my training in 2000s, Shem did his 30 years prior and there was a huge difference in the way medicine was practiced. But some things remain the same. My favorite laws from the the book during my training would have been "The only good admission is a dead admission" and "Placement comes first." I understood the BUFF and TURF and hated the BOUNCE. The abuse of the interns and their growing cynicism are accurately portrayed. There is a shock value though - the treatment of patients have evolved to be more humane rather than just about money/insurance.

Despite this, I found that about 60-70% into the book I wanted it to end. Could be because the writing was not the best, could be because there was lack of character development, could be because it was really starting to get cheesy. Even in this day and age with a Resident Union, there would be NO way I or any of my co-residents could openly criticize my attendings. It just seemed that Shem wrapped it up into a real nice and convenient ending, with everyone going into his field, including the nonmedical personnels.

Overall, I would still recommend it to anyone who is going to become or is a physician. It is outdated a bit, but the cynicism that internship and residency create is very finely demonstrated.

I read this book as a third year medical student in the late 1980's. At that time, the AIDS epidemic was raging and hospitals were full of infected iv drug abusers and angry frequent flyers. The patients were miserable and doing lumbar punctures, iv lines, and other invasive tests was grueling and dangerous. In those days, we would work for 36 hours straight in the ICU go home for 12 hours to sleep and return to work. During the rotation, which I did during January and February, he ICU was full and I was beyond busy with procedures, tests, notes, and trying to not kill anyone.

The laws of the house of God were a life saver during internship as they helped me structure the patients care and stay calm during codes.

Fortunately, medicine and medical education has profoundly softened since that time. Interns work less and seem to have less responsibility. In those days, we directed all the patients care with the resident staff. There was supervision but it was often distant and seemingly non existent. And yes we made some mistakes.

Shea's book was published during an even earlier era than mine, so the patients described are different, private doctors have been supplanted by hospitalists, and the DRG fixed payment system encourages premature discharges of patients rather than endless hospital stays. Women now make up ½ of medical school classes

This book was recommended to me by colleges as a satire of the life of a doctor. I am a young emergency physician and was shocked at how lewd and unprofessional this trashy book is. Perhaps in the 70s you could get away with this but many parts of this book would get you fired immediately now. I hate to think the public would think we doctors are fantasising about having sex with nurses during a code. Unless you are addicted to porn don't waste your time with this.

I really enjoyed this book when I read it prior to medical school. It felt like a gritty preview of how the medical world really works.
As I completed my training and started practice, my opinion of the book soured considerably. Hearing fellow students, residents, and physicians quote from the book liberally turned my stomach. I certainly have witnessed callous, arrogant, and jaded people in medicine, but if anyone under my supervision treated patients as ‘gomers’, they would’ve out of my clinic so fast their head would still be spinning. The physicians who were my mentors dealt with the limitations and realities of medicine, for sure, but they also taught me to do so with compassion and empathy. If you take this book literally or as a how-to, you will be misled.

I purchased this after a good friend who is an MD strongly recommended it - I work with doctors everday (although not a medical professional myself) so I thought this would give some interesting insights... I am on page 200 and simply can read no more! It is SO REPETITIVE and I am still waiting for the storyline to develop halfway through! It is killing me to not finish this book, but I think in the end it will be more painful to try to get through the next 200 pages. It is so bad, I think I will literally trash it so that I never have to be reminded of the time I wasted trying to read it...

I did not finish this book.

I rarely say or type those words. When I pick up a book on purpose - I finish it. Sure I've been handed a book by a friend that I read a few pages and then given it back. But when I decide to read something - I finish it. I slogged through 864 pages of Anna Karenina and hated nearly every page...but I finished it.

When I was offered a copy of "The House of God," I jumped at the chance. I've heard of this book since I started medical school. Every medical student has because it's famous. It's called the "Catch-22" of medicine. It debunks the "heroic doctor" myth and shows medicine how it really is down in the trenches.

When I was working in my first hospital as a medical student I heard about the dark humor in the book. Example: The jokes about how to "turf" a patient to another specialty using the motorized hospital bed. The idea is basically that old people always fall out of bed, or as the book says "GOMERs go to ground." So if you want them turfed to Orthopedics - you raise the bed high enough that they'll break a hip when they fall out. If you want them turfed to Neurosurgery you raise the bed high enough to cause a brain bleed when they fall out.

Even in the book this is portrayed as sadistic humor only funny to overworked interns.

The book has much more than that. The author creates now famous acronyms to describe the most typical patients.

LOL in NAD = Little Old Lady in No Apparent Distress (but you have to admit her becuase she has some vague complaint and will not go away. Just try to avoid running any tests - or then you'll have to treat what you find - and make her worse)

GOMER = Get Out of My Emergency Room (old dememted patients bordering on death, but they never do because doctors are great at keeping them alive)

The book also presents the "laws of the house of god "as told by the senior resident.

A few are:

1. GOMERS GO TO GROUND.
2. AT A CARDIAC ARREST, THE FIRST PROCEDURE IS TO TAKE YOUR OWN PULSE.
3. THERE IS NO BODY CAVITY THAT CANNOT BE REACHED WITH A #14 NEEDLE AND A GOOD STRONG ARM.
4. IF YOU DON'T TAKE A TEMPERATURE, YOU CAN'T FIND A FEVER.
5. SHOW ME A MEDICAL STUDENT WHO ONLY TRIPLES MY WORK AND I WILL KISS HIS FEET.
6. THE DELIVERY OF GOOD MEDICAL CARE IS TO DO AS MUCH NOTHING AS POSSIBLE.

Seriously - I think the creators of the comedy T.V. series "SCRUBS" took half of their ideas from this book. Scrubs is a hilarious show, but I can't recommend it to my family or friends - because there is too much stuff that's just wrong: Inappropriate, macabe, and just plain offensive.

This book is worse.

The three line introduction is vulgar. The first paragraph is bordering on pornographic, and it only gets worse from there. The book may have gems, it may have won awards, it may be sadly hilarious for medical professionals, but it is not for me.

I understand why people liked it, and why they recommended it to me. But it's just too gross, too unfeeling, and too sexual.

I'm sure I'll still hear medical students talking about "GOMERs", and "Orthopedic Height" for the hospital bed. We'll talk regularly about hoof beats being a sign of horses, not zebras. And I'll remember the good lesson: that often the best medical care is to do as much nothing as possible.

I'll remember all those things, and probably appreciate them - but I'll never finish this book.

While the writing is very good and I enjoyed the book very much, I couldn't read all of it. I purchased this book new yet several pages were ripped leaving chunks of the text missing. I constantly buy items from the store Prime and am severely disappointed in this product.

It is the first of July, and Roy Basch, an intern at the House of God hospital is scared. It's his, and his colleagues' (The Runt, Potts, Chuck, and Hooper) first day of work as doctors. The book follows all of these doctors, and the nurses, patients, and assorted other characters that they come into contact with for the next year. Author Samuel Shem writes in the afterword that the book is vaguely autobiographical, and I don't doubt it. I liked this book and found it interesting, although I think there were too many characters and it was sometimes hard to keep them all straight. When I first started reading this, I thought it was non-fiction, but it is actually fiction and an enjoyable read.

In my humble opinion, H.O.G. is not a "modern classic" - it is a MODERN ICON. Every doctor absolutely must read it. If you are even thinking of medicine (or surgery) as a career, it must be read at least three times: once in your medical school; the second time in your residency; and then finally when you are done with your fellowship, married (then divorced), have a kid (or two) that you never get to see, and a student loan that is twice the size of your mortgage-plus-alimony-plus-child support and a revolving thought in your head that keeps nagging "How the hell did I get into this cr@p?" ... yep, that's when you read it for the third time. Then get drunk and realize how stupid you were that you didn't figure it all out after Samuel Shem (that's H.O.G.'s author) spelled it out for you when you read it way back in medical school...
An absolute gem.

Heard abt this book in our inauguration speech as I resumed for internship. CRAP! Read the reviews and I still dnt get it. What is this sick book abt. Wish I cld return the book. Found out no one in our generation has heard of it nor read it . Guess it was funny and " the book" back then when residency was a curse.
Advice if you are a new gen resident pls dnt buy the book
wish I cld give it -1 star

If you ask any doctor what book he or she should read, then "House of God" is it. This is the classic tale from the '70s which follows residents as they learn, treat, and interact with patients. Terms such as "gomer" (short for Get Out of My Emergency Room) were first revealed to readers in this book. Dr. Samuel Shem (a pen name) did a great job depicting the hospital as a sexual madhouse, way before Gray's Anatomy came along. As a physician myself, I recommend this book to all my medical students and premeds.
"The House of God" was published back in the 70's, so the one knock on it is that it is now out-of-date.
CNN's house doctor Dr. Sanjay Gupta's Monday Mornings: A Novel is a good read for pre-meds and med students interested in the medical field. Although this one doesn't cover medical school per se, it's a great read about practicing physicians. Like H.O.G., it's fiction.
For nonfiction fans, I highly recommend God's Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine. It's a well-written and even somewhat poetic recounting of one of the last old-fashioned hospitals in the U.S.

I read this book in one night, back in 1979, while working on call as a third-year resident at Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton Ohio. I am now a retired Internist, having worked over 30 years in medicine. I understand why a few (percentage wise) don't like this book, but I LOVED it. It does exaggerate many things, as all satire does, but the "root messages" are absolutely true. I still warn friends and family to avoid being hospitalized at a teaching hospital on July 1, unless it's a matter of life and death (which it might actually be IF you go in!)

The House of God is a crude and funny representation of the woes and evolution of an internal medicine resident. The book is hailed as a must-read in medical institutions, partially to emphasize how medical training has improved, and partly to acknowledge the unique challenges that doctors experience trying to work with people during the most trying and hopeless times of their lives. The book emphasizes the futility and potential harm of many medical treatments, and glorifies knowing when to back off. It stresses the fallibility of the human condition, while showing a heart-warming progression from hopelessness to person realization and transition in life despite daunting barriers. I highly recommend this book to any aspiring doctor, but advise you to be ready for the crudeness that is not infrequent in medical professional mentality today.

This 1970's novel about Roy Basch, intern, is well known in the medical field. I read it for the first time during my own training in the early 80's. Most of us did. I'm on my fourth copy, because it keeps falling apart. Despite reading this book, my eldest is now in medical school, looking forward to his own internship.
It's a slightly (!) over the top journey through what was then a very tough medical apprenticeship. The rules limited all night call to four nights a week, and no more than alternate weekends, but the rules were often ignored. Refusal to work got you kicked out and futureless. We took refuge in black humour, cruel jokes, alcohol, and sex. We, too, slept with and often married nurses, or sociable cervixes. We called for bowel runs, 'roids, and fought for the best patients. One or two of us found it too tough and shuffled off this mortal coil. The rest of us grew a skin. In short, (almost) everything found in this book was true for us. This remains an extremely funny, cruel and slightly surrealistic look at medical training which has a lot of lessons for students now. It's also a great read. It should be #1 on any wouldbe medical student's must read list.

As an ICU nurse for 4 years, I picked up this book because it came recommended from a colleague. There are many wonderful reviews here on the store, so I will just say I second very many. For me, when I first started reading it, made me sick to my stomach. Then, progressed into dark humor about patients I have seen that he describes in this book and that same very feeling they gave me that they gave to him. And lastly, presented me with all the truth and the naked, ugly face of modern adult medicine our average (I mean as it average type, not average care) hospital provides. What the author writes is straight on, blunt, 99% true and not exaggerated, and God, he must have been brave to write this book because I can totally see how easily this book can be criticized and labeled "wrong," "unethical," "not true," etc. The sad and sickening thing is, it's all true and real.

First and foremost, I do not work in the medical profession. That being said, I really can't corroborate if the scenarios described in the book are accurate or not. What I have been told by some MD's however, is that training can be hell. I would imagine that despite all the interactions, internship could be a lonely experience. I believe one significant theme of this book deals with introspection: many of the "terns" did not really have a clue as to whether this is really what they wanted to do for the rest of their lives. As for the critics, remember this novel is written by a guy from a different generation: different values, ideologies, etc. I think it was a great book.

This is the classic novel of an idealistic young man who must suddenly face the grinding gears of modern medicine. Other readers complain about the characters' lack of compassion. But what they are missing is that the real villain here is the medical SYSTEM, which pounds residents with 36 hour calls from hell, and tortures the blissfully demented with one painful procedure after another. What Shem wanted the readers to know is that the system is inhuman and corrupt, and that to survive, people either deny or bail out, because the system won't change on its own. Some readers are also disturbed by all the sex, saying that it is unnecessary, and cheapens the book. I disagree. Sex serves as a coping mechanism for the interns, who are cut off from everything they hold dear, and must grasp at the sad pleasure of brief sexual flings to remain sane. The nurses have been jaded by failed relationships and begin to reject their sex-hating Catholic upbringing--to them, casual sex is also a coping mechanism. I can't speak for all interns, but I have seen many young doctors attempt to substitute casual sex for the full lives and deep connections that they are denied. The only difference is that, these days, interns tend to sleep with other interns, as there are many more women in medicine than in Shem's day. But the idea is the same. This book still rings very true, which is sad, because it means that the system hasn't changed at all.

This is an absolute must read for anyone interested going into the medical profession. It is provocative, compelling, and even a little dirty. Dr. Shem is able to enthrall the reader almost right away, and you immediately find yourself relating to many of the characters. The protagonist is complex and interesting, and there are times where the awkwardness, exhaustion, and anxiety is palpable. I was told to read this book as a pre-med, medical student, intern, resident, then again as an attending. I can attest to this being good advice, and the meaning does completely change every time you read it. Make it part of your library.

A flawed classic. HOG is the account of an intern's year and the trials he faces.HOG is really a caricature of medical training, seen through the eyes of a disaffected trainee (is there any other kind?). I read it as a first year med student and was enthralled. I read it again as a resident and enjoyed it, but saw flaws. When I read it as a professor I was annoyed at the presumptions/exaggerations of the author/hero. The non-medical reader shouldn't read this as an accurate factual portrayal of the medical system. It is an accurate portrayal of how the system feels to those still in training...which is something very different.

What a terrific book- well written and literate. Think catch-22 for doctors. It has the ring of truth although produced as "fiction". You can always tell if a book is good if you read the one-star reviews and the morons hate it, didn't read it, can't spell and generally make fools of themselves. It is funny because of the inadverdent title which probably brought many readers who thought this was a god-glorifying paean to doctors and couldn't and didn't get the humor. I'm only up to page 144 but LMAO. Don't get me wrong- it is bittersweet, moving and profound, and shows the loneliness and alienation of the medical life. Don't miss it. Good reading to you.

Here's a thought: whenever you write a review mention another book you liked.
That way we all can find the good ones.
Here's one: "The Dirt on Clean" by Katherine Ashenburg. It's about the history of bathing. One tidbit: at the palace of Versailles they passed an ordinance that the feces that courtiers left in the fireplaces, stairwells, etc be cleaned at least once a week...

edit: I'm now up to page 244. Such a great book. My thought is that doctors suffer from a form of PTSD. When I compare them to soldiers there's death all around them on a constant basis, a generalized inablity to prevent those deaths, and an etiological uncertainty as to the cause of those deaths. The difference is that doctors are not themselves at risk and it's less noisy in their environment. Think about it.

At first, I was disappointed with the book. It was a little too soft-porn at times with the sex going on in the hospital. Then, that kind of died down and I was able to read the book for what it is: the truth about medicine and the ridiculousness of what really goes on in a hospital. I'm not a doctor, but as a nurse, I see how much of this is true. It's a well-written book and I think this author was ahead of his time by coming out and speaking about what goes on. I've seen others compare this book to 'Catch-22' and I agree in some ways. It does speak about the insanity that runs rampant in the bureaucracies that run organizations, whether it be a hospital or the military. A theme in 'Catch-22' is, "The only way to survive such an insane system is to be insane oneself." This is also seen throughout 'The House of God.' Good book that I would recommend, especially to those in the healthcare field. I plan on reading the sequel, 'Mount Misery,' as well.

There are all kinds of things I hate about this book. I hate remembering how long I would go without sleep and the psychic torture that an internship inflicts on you. I hated the depersonalization of patients. I hated the sexual escapades. Most of all, I hated having in print the real feelings of an intern who has been up for three days - praying on the way to the ER that that Nursing Home Gomer with 20 fatal diagnoses would have the decency to croak before you got there so you could get an extra five minutes of sleep or a stale doughnut before the cafeteria closed again.
Shem portrays masterfully the jumble of emotions of a typical intern. There is a superficial level of glossy brown-nosing that got you into med school in the first place. Buzz words like compassion, continuity of care and empathy are used with the teaching physicians and in meetings. Then there is a deeper level of survival where you would kill your mother for 5 minutes of sleep or being able to crap without the code blue pager going off. This level is usually not discussed or written about in many of the typical intern coming-of-age books out there. Not because it isn't true, but because it's uncomfortable and offensive to non-physicians. Shem is the master of this level of medical thinking. No one else even comes close. Shem approaches but doesn't quite get to an even more primal level - that of duty. This level is what keeps an intern from punching his residency directors or the arrogant surgeon who asks him "What is the difference between a sh*thead and a brown-noser" and then tells you the answer is depth perception.(True story) It's what makes you do your best when you know the patient is hopeless or even abusive as you try your best to save them from themselves or some disease.
The humor is black as night and the sex is soft-core porn, according to my nephew in medical school to whom I sent a copy of this book.
House of God has two profound themes. The first is a detailed description of medicine and medical training. This theme is presented with black humor, and some (but not as much as you think) exaggeration. I have read nothing that does this better. The second theme of the book is universal, however. It is the theme of Man vs. World and the World wins, but the Man is too maimed to know it.
The book still disturbs and haunts me because Shem puts in print graphically and eloquently some of the thoughts and occurences that we don't even admit to ourselves.

This proto-Kevorkian pseudo-expose ia a testament only to the size of the author's ego. Perhaps it is the umbrage of this ego, perhaps it is the immature development (on the part of the author) of a spiritual and intellectual perspective that approaches integrity, but this book fails fatally to recognize the power of both human compassion and of the human will to live.
I am a lay person, but my father was in the hospital for eight months before he passed away; Dr. Shem would have seen him as a despicable (in his mind) "gomer". In direct contradiction to Dr. Shem's tale, my father was treated with compassion and respect by many saintly people (doctors, interns, nurses, nurses aides, orderlies) who also constantly reinforced his will to live. That display of compassion (from strangers) towards my father as well as my father's own indefatigable fight against invincible death will strengthen my character for the rest of my life. I will also most likely pass the attributes of compassion and the will-to-live to others. Somehow, Dr. Shem fails to apprehend the value of this type of scenario.
As a novel, the sex is so frequent as to be exploitative. The textbook psychiatric explanation (solution ?) is simplistic. One saving grace is the recognition of love as salvation.
For an example of a doctor's compassion in the face of overwhelmsion, read Camus's, The Plague; for an example of how compassion can save both giver and taker in the face of overwhelmsion, read Steinbeck's, The Grapes of Wrath, (focus on the last scene); for a paean on the will to live, read Dylan Thomas', Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.

just wanted to make a + comment on this book. i read it 1/2 way through my internship in 1979 -1980. i read it because i had asked another intern why he was laughing hysterically in the hallway at LAC/USC medical center in 1979. all he could get out was (he was laughing very hard) "it is just like the book". intrigued, i read it. the book helped me a great deal not only with the rest of my internship but with the rest of my career. it was the first honest assessment of the state of medical care that i had run across, something that was new to me despite 4 years of medical school. if you are an intern, let me simply say life will get better! and if you are a married intern, make your wife read it, it may save you from a divorce. i plan to re-read it soon, as it would seem many physicians (perhaps even me at age 58) may be about to enter another "house of God" scenario unless the supreme court rules against it.

The original paperback version came out in 1978 and was already being widely read by medical students when I was an M4 the next year. Back in those days, we submitted our Match Lists in December and waited until mid-March to receive the results.

The week after submitting my list for Internal Medicine, I read House of God. The first part was breezy and funny but I began to feel the protagonist's pain and despair in the middle chapters. Things got a bit brighter toward the end, but as I read the book, I began to recognize the same despondency and disaffection of the HOG interns in my classmates and my house staff. During the three months leading up to Match Day, I experienced none of the call room antics but many of the late night self-doubts and despair.

By the time Match Day arrive, I had decided to abandon my goal of being a primary care physician and switched to a surgical specialty (I was released from my match obligation thanks to a helpful dean and a sympathetic program director). It was the correct choice for me. This book was the catalyst for one of the most important decisions in my life.

I am rereading the H.O.G. on the eve of my internship, having first read it on the eve of starting medical school four years ago. I must say that I am getting both more and less out of it than I did the first time. On the one hand, it is working out to be the story of my life, and is an all-too-accurate portrayal of the warped world that is modern academic medicine. On the other hand, the gratuitous sex and sappy melodramatic stuff reveal it as a sophomoric fantasy, and not a serious attempt at meaningful satire. The facts that Bergman (Shem) is not a particularly compelling speaker and has failed to produce much more than "Fine" and the current "Mount Misery" since 1978 indicate that he may not have so much to say after all. There oughta be more books like the venerated granddaddy of them all, the House of God. The culture of medicine is dangerously isolated from that of the mainstream, and it's books like these that help bring it back to reality.

Since I am not a medical professional, I certainly cannot comment on the accuracy of Shem's book. But, as a member of an ethnic group that values black humor I can testify that this one hilarious title.
The characters are interns in an urban teaching hospital. As such they are under pressure no human should have to endure. Their response is to laugh, darkly. In my opinion if they hadn't laughed they'd have lost their minds.
There are so many wonderful characters--the Fat Man, the resident who knows all, Little Otto, "whose name still rings no bells ding, ding in Stockholm." I'm not explaining Little Otto to you; go read the book.
_The House of God_ was written in the 1970's and is a product of that time. Shem needs to revise the book to tell the world what horrors managed care has brought to the lives of overworked and underpaid interns and residents. I have my suspicion that wrangling with insurance companies has tripled their insane workload.
If you are fortunate enough to be under the care of a good physician, read this if only to appreciate how damn hard they work.

Granted the book is exaggerated but I can find no book that catches the flavor of existential angst of internship as well as House of God does. I go back to it (and the movie) like it is an old friend, the only one that truly understands what I go through daily as an attending physician. Yes, folks, it doesn't get much better beyond internship! There is a lot of denial amongst doctors which leads to alienation. Shem is probably one of the few who have given us the truth. Medicine is a hard path to take in life and much has changed since managed care took over. I wish another Samuel Shem would come along to write a Revisited contemporary version of House of God in which the doctors are played by the patient's insurance representatives. They would go on daily rounds discussing how they can refuse every test, medication or procedure that their patient requests. In this revised House of God, the real doctors never see their patients because they have to spend all their time down in medical records filling out endless insurance forms and complying with federal regulations. Fatman would be very happy.

I read *The House of God* the year after I completed my own internship, while running a rural clinic (a la NORTHERN EXPOSURE, but back during the Carter Administration) and contending with the first onslaught of Managed Money (also known as Mangled Care).
It was strange. I recognized the unarguable truth of the Laws of the House of God, and knew the Fat Man and Jo (the Journal Club Maniac) and all the slurpers and sleazebags and "physician entrepreneurs" for whom I'd spent a year of my life doing scut while salvaging their patients. I couldn't stop laughing through the first half of the book, and then a curious thing happened.
The second half of the novel left me more and more depressed, remembering the bleakness and pain of that year, and summoning up the hard lessons I had learned -- and was still learning as a young physician in the first years of practice. It reminded me that no matter what I did, the slurpers and the self-righteous stuffed shirts in my profession were going to win. They were going to keep on degrading and destroying patients and their families, gorging on the increasing wealth being poured into "the health care industry," and beating the hell out of decent physicians who actually dared give a damn about the humanity of the people who come to us for treatment.
And now, nearly three decades later, the laughs are completely gone and the truth is beyond concealment. *The House of God* is a wonderful glimpse of life as a scutpuppy back in the '70s, yes -- but more than that, it's a prophetic anticipation of the destruction of what was once a pretty decent profession, working to achieve something more than a favorable return on investment.
The '70s weren't "the good old days" by any stretch of the imagination, but who could've believed back then that the 21st Century was going to be so godawfully much worse?

I've read this book twice. Once before starting medical school and now a second time just completing my residency at the House of God West (HOGW). In any highly stressful environment, be it combat, firefighting, law enforcement and (it would appear) delivering mail, people use essentially the same defense mechanisms to deal with physical and psychological discomfort. HOG does a pretty good job of describing how house staff in a teaching hospital deal with their daily grind.

Everything in this book is as true in managed care as it was in the transition years of the seventies. I assure you, there is still sex in the hospital. I don't know what happenned to the reviewers that deny this, but it was certainly experienced by me and my cohort of residents. Nurses, medical students and house staff didn't suddenly stop liking sex when the 70s ended. There does seem to be less smoking than is described in the book, however. Go figure.

The reviews of this book by medical students and even pre-meds are sometimes funnier than the book itself. Honestly, medical students are still on the outside looking in and have about as much place commenting on whether the experiences described in this book depict intern life... as an actor playing an intern on ER. Wait until you've had the call pager for a month straight, then write your review.

I can't necessarily recommend this book to laypeople; it's not a work of art. But, every single college student filling out those applications and studying for that MCAT should be *required* to read this book.

And to those laypeople who are somehow shocked by the goings on at a teaching hospital: Just make sure you get that DNI/DNR order straightened out before you too become a gome.

I read this book in the middle of internship at a busy NYC hospital, and I believe it is a must read for all interns. The book is about how internship at one of the Harvard Hospitals breaks several interns, who ultimately decide to continue in psychiatry rather than internal medicine. While laws now limit the hours we work and I have yet to see a 'tern broken, several points in the book resonate with me and have made me a better doc!
Most importantly, my #1 goal is to "buff and turf" the patient--meaning get the patient well enough to transfer them away. When other 'terns deviate from this policy, I have watched them get overwhelmed. Other important rules of medicine are reiterated in the book's appendix and are worth reading. Those who are not in medicine but who are curious about the field should also read this book. The characters are great and really portray hospital life accurately. To read this book is to "live through" an internship!

This book is a "characture" of the life of a first-year resident in a large urban teaching hospital. Like all charactures, certain features are exaggerated to the point of absurdity. Still, there is much that rings true in these pages.

I found Shem's prose choppy and his character development somewhat abbreviated and symbolic, but again the characters were charactures of themselves and not intended to be "real" in the usual sense of character development.

The rules of The House of God are interesting, and a few I found worth actually passing on, like I. "Gomers go to ground" and III. "AT A CARDIAC ARREST, THE FIRST PROCEDURE IS TO TAKE YOUR OWN PULSE."

The one thing that Shem captures well is the coping mechanisms used by medical professionals, especially in high-stress medical sectors like Emergency Medicine. "Black humor" and sarcasm carry the day in the ED.

I've worked in emergency medicine for more than 15 years and I think that anyone who works in the ICU or ER certainly should check out this book. It is a "quotable".

House of God is a nicely written book - it is a quick read thanks to its fluency. Events happen so fast in the life of the portrayed intern that they simply fly by, which Shem carries across to the reader by not clearly distinguishing them by paragraphs or chapters. This might perhaps not be suitable to all readers. The sarcasm and reality mix quite well and if you are not a doctor yourself, you think twice before entering a hospital next time. The only character I truly didn't enjoy was Berry, the girlfriend of the main protagonist, and her neverending Freudian anecdotes. But this might derive from the fact that I am coming from the psychological side of this profession, who outdated Freud some time ago.
Who liked this book might also enjoy "The Year of the Intern" by Robin Cook, which is quite different from his nowadays trash novels.

This novel is a candid often shocking account of a young doctor's year as a resident in a large New York hospital. The author is a professor at Harvard Medical school and a psychologist. His experiences provide a great basis for this novel which seems so real it is often difficult to believe it is fiction. The character development is excellent. The reader begins to love characters like the sagely "Fat Man" and the other young doctors and hate the bureaucracy that leads the doctors to disillusionment. Even if you do not really like medicine the book is interesting because it is a study of a unique psychological world. Shem's story draws the reader evokes powerful emotions. The story is quick moving and never dull the resolution is perfect. This is a masterpiece. It was so good I went out to buy Shem's other novel "Mount Misery" which was also good but lacked the energy and refinement of "The House of God"

Any medical professional who reads this will find that many phrases now common (especially in teaching hospitals) originated in this book. I have read this book several times in my nursing career, and the longer I've been in the profession, the more I understand it. Even laypeople who enjoy the show "ER" will note that some of the catchphrases of that show got their start here. Now that the book is getting older, many people may assume that hospitals aren't really like the one described here. In some ways, they aren't--the days of being admitted to the hospital just for tests are long gone, and most hospital stays are far shorter now than they were then. That said, the medical hierarchy, the cynicism, and the gallows humor are very much alive and well. I think they always will be.
Anyone considering reading this should be warned that there are sexual references that are frequent and crude, not to mention completely unnecessary. There is also a very warped view of women, including nurses, social workers, and female doctors. I would love to see this book rewritten with a less chauvinistic tone. The main message of the book is too important to miss.
Lastly, the "LAWS" in the book may seem very tongue in cheek, but the interesting thing is that they are actually true. And every time I respond to a cardiac arrest, I take my own pulse first.

This is the classic medical novel which is considered "required reading" for anyone who wants to be a doctor. It's a very interesting, but sometimes disturbing read. As a doctor, I don't find that there is nearly as much sex in the hospital as House of God lets on, but maybe it's just that I'm not involved in it! Overall, a must-read for anyone in the medical profession.
Sanjay Gupta's recent book Monday Mornings: A Novel is a good companion to House of God from a medical fiction standpoint. These are the two medical novels I recommend to medical students and premeds.

In this age of reality TV, many will be fascinated, repelled, disturbed and intrigued about this look in the life of a resident intern at a large teaching hospital. For those in the know, it is a sarcastic yet honest glimpse of the perils of an intern.
House of God focuses on Dr. Roy Basch- a new intern who is working at a large teaching institution. Like all interns, he is thrown in with the instruction to "keep the patient alive." He battles grueling schedules, hopeless patients, attendings and disease. He learns from the chief, interns and residents--and even the patients "gomers".
For those who are unfamiliar with medical training this book would be very disturbing, but for those of us who know what residents go through...it is surprisingly real. I first read this book as an M4- just about to start July 1st internship. As an M4 you are cocky, arrogant and optimistic and this book was funny, sacriligous even. I read it again after finishing residency and was struck by how honest it was to the residency experience..sometimes painfully so.
I liked the book when i first read it, but i can appreciate it more now...It is surprising that the author was able to capture the feelings of interns and be brave enough to put it into book form.

First of all, let me state that I haven't experienced yet the turmoils of a residency or internship. I'm a second year medical student, so it was fascinating for me to see what lies ahead. I think it'll be even more interesting to re-read this book after getting through residency, and see how accurately it portrayed the experience.

The book is very similar in tone to "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" as it points out the contradictions and ironies of modern medicine. In the book, it is implied that it is crueler to prolong the suffering of the 'gomers' (a derogatory term for elderly patients who are very ill, confused, and in a lot of pain, but still manage to avoid death) than to poke and prod them, doing one diagnostic test and procedure after another. 'Turfing', or sending a patient to another ward or department, is encouraged as an excellent way to get rid of patients that one does not want to treat.

There are two main schools of thought in the book: the first is the idea of physician as a healer and hero, portrayed by Jo, a female internist; the second is the idea of medicine as temporary modifications--some of which do more harm than good--represented by the "Fat Man".

Jo is a purist and what one would now call a "gunner"--a highly ambitious internist with her sights set on a cardiology fellowship; she believes that medicine is best taught by textbooks and best practiced aggressively and voraciously. With Jo, every patient gets a full workup and plenty of procedures, which often lead to secondary infections and complications more damaging than the primary disease process itself. To please her, the interns working under her often "BUFF" the charts (document tests and procedures that were not actually done) while waiting for the patients' conditions to resolve themselves.

The "Fat Man" is a cynical New Yorker with a voracious appetite and hopes for a GI fellowship. He becomes a mentor to the narrator, Dr. Basch, and practices medicine based on his own experiences (hence the ridiculous age + BUN = lasix dose rule), but has a natural gift for it that Jo and the other physicians do not.

Somewhere in the middle is Roy G. Basch, the protagonist who experiences many sleepless nights, sexual escapades, and conflicting thoughts about what it means to be a physician. I don't want to give away the ending, but let's just say I loved it. The book sheds light on the difficulties of dealing with life and death (hence the "House of God") and the high expectations placed on physicians. It's definitely a worthwhile read, and a very honest look at the profession.

This book is a mess. What I found more appalling than the writer's weak and repetitive phrasing, dated 1970s vernacular, and reliance on the shock of swears and slang is the way in which "Shem" writes about women and minorities. This book is a relic of an age when it was acceptable to categorize women in almost strictly anatomical terms. When stereotyping was considered synonymous with humor. The scarce female physicians are maligned as prudish sticklers. Nurses are there to service the physicians. Literally. As in the protagonists have (extremely graphic and honestly, not very sexy) affairs. Oh yeah and an orgy with the doctors. There's even a few paragraphs where the protagonist giddily talks about how he gets to fondle female patients. It's really hard to read as a woman. Yeah, I get it. It's a satire. Satire isn't a shield for blatant misogyny and racism. This book is a dinosaur. Read it as a historical document. But, save your money and borrow from a library.

Loved this book. Gave me new points of view as an M1. Had an orthopedic surgeon tell me that this was a satire though, which had me wondering about this book. Anyways loved the story and couldn't recommend enough to someone entering the medical field

The HOUSE OF GOD was originally published in the 1970's when it was relatively more fashionable to throw eggs at anything that was "establishment". In this darkly humorous novel, the target is the U.S. medical profession - specifically, the training young physicians receive at the beginning of their careers.
We follow the education of Dr. Roy Basch during the year of his hospital internship in the HOUSE OF GOD after graduating from the Best Medical School. Almost immediately, he's introduced to the patient population that will be his nemesis - the Gomers (the acronym for Get Out of My Emergency Room). Gomers are geriatric, mentally disoriented, chronically ill, debilitated adults who get no better, yet never manage to die on their own. Dr. Roy can choose as a role model either the Fat Man or Jo, two second-year doctor-trainees ("residents"). The Fat Man's philosophy is to do nothing to treat the Gomers, while Jo will attempt every heroic procedure in the book. Paradoxically, Gomers get better, or at least remain stable, under the former regimen, but get worse and die under the latter. At the other end of the patient scale are those relatively young admissions that die tragically no matter what. After several months of experiencing this and exposure to the incompetence and/or mercenary greed of the private physicians on the hospital staff, Basch is sustained in this psychologically and professionally crushing environment only by the sex he has with Nurse Molly. Then, even that isn't enough, and Roy alienates his friends by becoming withdrawn, sarcastic, and obnoxious. Can our hero, all idealism now lost, be saved before he drops out or commits suicide?
Since the HOUSE OF GOD was authored by a physician, Samuel Shem, I give him the benefit of the doubt that his description of the dehumanizing experience that is a medical internship in a large, urban medical center is at least partly accurate. And, it is humorous, at least until the reader realizes that each one of us is a potential Gomer, at which point the plot becomes less cause for chuckles. God forbid that we should become victims of such medical malpractice as found within these pages.
The greatest failing of this novel in the year 2001 is that it's dated. In this age of AIDS, I would doubt that `terns" are nowadays as promiscuous as depicted. And, since many physicians are now not much more than salaried drones for the HMOs, the egotism of the medical profession as a whole is not quite the balloon to be popped that it once was.
As an alternative to Shem's novel, I would recommend the 1971 cinematic black comedy THE HOSPITAL, starring George C. Scott, since it touches on much the same themes. Scott is at his very best, and the movie can be viewed more quickly than this book can be read. At 420 pages, the latter got a little tiresome.

This is a must read for those who work as healthcare professionals. I read it before my third year in medical school. I laughed out loud repeatedly throughout the book. Many inside jokes are cracked on wards everywhere by students, interns, residents and staff physicians. This book, although containing controversial material, has become a part of medical culture. It definitely intertwines the practice of medicine with human instincts and volitions. If you're a physician or a medical student, and you haven't read this book...don't waste another second...buy it and become part of the culture.

If you don't have experience working in a hospital, you'll probably find the book to be distasteful and unbelievable.

A black comedy about the futilities of treating patients in a hospital setting as seen through the eyes of a young medical intern Roy Basch and his chief resident the Fat Man and other characters... how they all cope with the grueling medical training process... and how it changes their hopeful optimism to jaded cynicism in a few short years...

A guilty pleasure... hilarious.

I first read this book almost 20 years ago and my thoughts have not changed. Good laughs, amazing quotes you’ll never forget and an absolute must read. By the way... I’m a Critical Care/ Trauma Nurse so this book is not just for the docs!!

I read this book 3 times.

Fist time as a college student. I had been told if I was going to medical school then I had to read it. I thought it was the most perverted, sexist, racist and generally horrid piece of trash I had ever come across. I could not for the life of me understand why anyone would tell me this was a book to read.

Second time was as a 3rd year. I still thought it was pretty bad but perhaps had some redeeming moments and was worth reading.

Third time was the middle of internship - before the kinder gentler 80h work week limits - on my one vacation of the year. I literally fell out of my chair splitting my sides laughing.

I've read this book 2 1/2 times now. The first time I only got through half - I was a premed and being a liberal feminist I was offended by the treatment of women. The second time I read it all the way through - I was a first year med student and after ignoring the sexist stuff it was a very funny read - but not all of it was accessible to me with my limited medical knowledge at the time. The third read was recently as a 4th year student. Even more hilarious now that I've been through the experience of the wards. Highly recommended!

To heck with this being for med students and interns anyone who deals with patients should read House of God. I remember reading this for the first time in nursing school fifteen years ago. I've read it several more times since then and always find myself laughing out loud. In spite of it being a hilariously funny book it is also a cautionary tale and believe it or not one that I have used daily in my nursing practice. Everytime I lower the bed of a disoriented patient I think of it as preventing a turf to ortho, or (God Forbid) a turf to neuro. When I work with new medical students I often watch them "hearing zebras" and it reminds me to be supportive and helpful. I will honestly say that this book is not for the lay man. It can come across as brutal and unfeeling when in reality the point behind this book is to never stop feeling. Just don't let it kill you and always remember it's probably better to hit 'em with some 'roids. Great Book!

I listened to this prior to residency, and wow felt like I had my fortune told. The satire as suggested above remains very much relevant and I still uphold the Fat Man's rules of engagement. In regards to the audiobook itself, the narration was extraordinary, with distinct personalities and undertones offered by the narrator.

Read this book shortly after it's 1st publication and shortly after I graduated from nursing school and was working a med-surg unit in a large Level 1 trauma center. Loved it then and love it now. Yes, it's an absurd satire, but it's also very real. Residents really do "turf" the "gomers" to other units.

I first read this book at the beginning of my internship (2001) and, though I liked it very much, I found that the author's vision of Medicine was way too dark and bitter. It was more of a novel (like Robin Cook's, but actually good) than anything else for me.
(Some spoilers below)
Then, I read it again after becoming a doctor. And I don't see this book as a novel anymore. I could relate to almost all of Dr.Basch's (main char) crisis, his initial egomania that made him believe he could 'save the world', his withdrawn from friends and loved ones getting to such point that he'd prefer to hang at the ICU than to be with his girlfriend, seeing his intern friends deteriorate physically and psychologically while unaware of his own decay.
I was shocked when I realized I went through a lot of the things he had, including dear people acusing me of being cold and absent.
Some doctors say that internship destroys your inner being, others say that it makes it die and reborn like a Phoenix. Anyway, nobody goes through internship all the way without leaving something behind, and sometimes these things might be what you liked most about yourself. Or the ones that liked you.
Anyway it is an excellent, fun (very sarcastic) and, now I see, VERY realistic.
I love this book and I will likely read it again in a couple of years.

In reading the "House of God," you may find yourself going deeper into the darkness of the medical profession. This literary journey parallels Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness." Conrad recounts an Englishman's psychological descent deep into the Belgian Congo in search of a talented and successful ivory trader. As the Englishman, Marlow, travels further into the heart of the jungle, he realizes that colonists are misusing their new colony by ravaging and plundering the continent's natural resources and its people. When Marlow finds Kurtz, he discovers that Kurtz has developed an obsession for power and influence through his raids for ivory. Similarly, Samuel Shem portrays a similar journey of the "best medical students" entering the ranks of the medical profession geared to provide the best medical care. As these students care for their patients on their wards, they realize that the hospital administers are out of touch with the best medical students and the patients that are ultimately under their care. As time takes them deeper into the health care system, they witness mismanagement, misuse of health care resources, and the dark side of human behavior.
Another comparison can be made with Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now." In "Apocalypse Now," Colonel Kurtz becomes inoculated to the sites and sounds of death in the Vietnam War. He learns that "you must make a friend of horror" or you must "fear it." Similarly, Shem portrays how the best medical students must come to grips with this concept before they can treat patients. The students must learn how to confront death and learn how to use sex and lies to provide the best treatments for their patients. Thus, their souls become what Conrad portrays Kurtz has having a soul "full of unspeakable secrets" that "knew no restraint, no faith, and no fear."
In reading this book and comparing to either of these masterpieces, you will find yourself making a journey deep into communities and minds that keep their inner workings secret. The thoughts and actions that these individuals partake are horrific to outsiders but are necessary mechanisms in keeping sane in an insane world. You may find yourself embracing Kurtz in "the horror, the horror" and joining the ranks of individuals who have become hollow due to their surroundings.

A truly awful book. The author is clearly a cynical baby boomer sociopath. Not reflective of the nature ion medicine and even for the time, the author clearly did not master his actual craft od medicine. I

Having read the book as a medical student, some contents proved at best foreign, strange, and at times shocking...as a surgical intern in an urban level one trauma center, many of the poignant episodes regarding such items as "Gomers go to ground..." are now scarily relevant. For those medical students seeking a true, but frequently exaggerated view of the life of a house officer (medicine, surgery,OB/Gyn etc.), this text will satisfy. Though dated with respect to some issues such as harrassment, you will find that the characters still exist...they're just working twenty years later in places like Atlanta, New York, Miami, and Shreveport.

I read this book 18 years ago when I was a young intern. In the first half the author brilliantly captures the physical side of human medicine where people are hard work and the body is a messy machine badly in need of repair. I still use many quotes from the book, such as, "Show me a [blank] who only triples my work and I will kiss [his/her] feet." The darkness of the humor helped me realize joy in my work as I never felt as bad on a day in my internship as the principal character seemed to feel constantly. Where the book failed me is half-way through where I realized that the character/author doesn't perhaps get his own joke. Humans are dirty, messy, and often demented as patients; and doctors are often misguided, clueless, and overwhelmed. And this is who we are! I love this fact of our closeness to the base, rather than the idea of man as a clean-bodied, god-fearing species, held apart from all others. A psychiatrist! Who wants to be that, when we can be so happy as inmates of the asylum?

It's a wonderfully funny book, with holdovers into even today's medical practice. I'm not an MD but I do work in a hospital, and every day I hear terms like "buff" and "turf". All you have to do is say "House of God" and you'll get quotes flying right and left.
I've read this about once a year since my mother let me, and my mother read it while she was in Nurses training in the early 60's.
Remember, Laughter is the best medicine.

The best book of it's kind to be written! Not only is it funny, but it is TOTALLY TRUE. Shem's portrayal of a year in the life of an intern is right on and especially timely now, in the days of managed care. Much too often decisions are made for other reasons than the patients' welfare. The trick,per Shem, is to work within the system without getting yourself booted out of it. The second trick is to take care of yourself while taking care of the patient. This is mandatory reading for both patients and health care providers. Take heart, though, the good Docs are out there, you just may have some trouble finding one.

I will be a first-year medical student this year, and after reading The House of God, I almost changed my mind! The author writes about the harsh side of medical training that most people either skim over or fail to mention at all. The characters are all very real, imperfect, and interesting. My only complaint is that someone should write an updated version of this story since the role of women and minorities as doctors has changed considerably since this novel was written.

My mother was an RN in a Jewish teaching hospital, so I grew up familiar with 'Buff 'n Turf', Gomers, etc. I also frequently ran into naked interns in our bathroom at 6 am; my mother was a firm believer in RN's providing 'terns with a well-rounded education. From that angle alone I can attest to the truthfulness of this book.

I am also a health care provider (EMS), and this book used to be required reading for our Paramedic students before they started their hell year (until the college discovered the contents of the book and yanked it from the curriculum).

Based on my experiences, I think anyone involved with any aspect of health care, or anyone interested in entering the field, should read this book. Yeah, a lot of stuff may not apply anymore, especially in the current sexual-harrassment era, but there's still a lot of insight to be gained from the book. I think it's a pretty accurate reflection of the culture of medicine, from the raw, dark, and frankly sexual humor, to the foxhole-camaraderie, to the unavoidibly depressing aspects. And there are a few clinical nuggets to be learned from the Fat Man ("In an emergency...").

Perhaps most importantly, I think it's a finely written book and a good read. I read it for the first time when I was 12, and I've read it many times since. It's been a pleasure every time.

I didn't want to read this book in medical school because all the tools were reading it, and as such only approached it as a fellow in Boston, where the story had some resonnance for me. I'm glad I waited because I think I appreciated the experience more than if I had read it in the pre-clinical years. We like to think that the training isn't like that any more and indeed, the experiences as detailed in the book are often of a different era. Still, there is enough in it, especially the views of the administration and staff, that ring true today.

I read this book when I was a medical resident at a Southern BMS (Best Medical School), and I was convinced that the author ("Dr. X" at the time) was a colleague! His language, descriptions of patients, anecdotes, and staff portrayals were too similar not to have come directly from the wards and clinics where I worked. And, I was horrified to see, from another vantage point, what I and my fellow residents were becoming. When I re-read the book decades later, I was grateful that a great many things have changed in our approaches to training new physicians.
There are two primary aspects of interest in this book: first, it is an uproariously funny book to anyone who trained in an urban medical center in the 1960-1970 era (others will miss 90% of the "in-group" humor), and, second, it is a devastating indictment of the way that physicians were trained at medical centers in the middle of the 20th century.
It is a good read, but now of most interest to 50+ year-old physicians and nurses.

I tried to listen to this book from Audible and couldn't get through the first chapter. Maybe it would be different to actually read the book versus listening to it, but the unabashed sexual harassment in the book was too much to endure.

I did my residency in the 1990s and I can assure you that it wasn't all that different than that depicted in Shem's book. The unbelievable workload, chronic lack of sleep, exposure to illness and death, all mixed with the constant pressure to be brilliant, hardworking, and efficient to impress pompous and seemingly callous superiors is a recipe for warping a person into an automaton. I just counted down the days until it was over. But the experience leaves you changed, hopefully not scarred, and now as an attending in a large BMS, I am glad that the schedules are more humane for our residents and interns, yet I somehow feel that they are soft and coddled because they can't work more than 80 hours/wk. Anyway, this experience is depicted well in HOG, and I think it would be hard for someone who hasn't experienced this to appreciate this book. If a layperson finds it horrifying, then maybe they will experience a little of what it was like for those of us who had to live it. The dark humor is extremely real, the sexual escapades were enjoyed by some, but not all of us, in the trenches. "Buff" and "turf" are terms I hear on a regular basis. I didn't care for the ending of the book; Roy's career choice seemed unlikely, but I'm guessing that's what happened to the author. Overall, the book brings to light some of the horrors of medical training, but sensationalizes it to a degree. The humor is at times adolescent, but still I had to laugh out loud at some parts. I'm sure I wouldn't give the book five stars if I hadn't gone through a fairly grueling internship myself though.

I read this book while recovering from a spinal fusion several years ago. I'd had my surgery at a large teaching hospital and read it to pass the time while I was hospitalized. Every resident, intern, fellow, etc who walked into my room seemed a little un-nerved to see me reading this...but I thought that maybe if I kept them on their toes, the'd keep me on mine.

As an MRI/CT Technologist, daughter of an RN, and sister to a pharmacist, I could relate to the experiences in the book. This should be a must-read for all medical personnel!

To the lay-readers who find the book's images and points of view both horrifying and repulsive, I would say only this: As a street paramedic I fully empathize with any experienced doctor, nurse, P.A., or other medical practitioner, who happens to be a little "crispy around the edges." Medicine at any level of practice is often a mental beat-down, frequently unrewarding, and always tough. The "gallows-humor" that HOG depicts so graphically is a defense-mechanism for a lot of health-care workers. Myself included. You either succumb to its temptation, or you burn out. And in that case, you're no good to anyone, least of all your patients. If you read the book from a perspective outside the medical profession, please keep an open mind and you will love the book as much as we who are "in the know" do. And if that doesn't work, you could always try walking a mile in our shoes...

Recently while we were riding in the car together, my boyfriend was updating me on the condition of his sick grandfather. The week before his grandpa had been hospitalized after a fall, but a CT scan showed an intestinal perforiation. His condition was complicated by the fact that he suffered from diabetes and severe obesity after a lifetime of eating Wisconsin cheese and fried foods on the farm. My boyfriend was upset because the operation had not gone well and the surgeons took hours longer than had been expected. His grandfather was now in the burn unit of the hospital waiting a transfer to the regional medical center. As soon as my boyfriend got this information out about the surgery I immediately started explaining how the surgeons probably had more infection to clean out of the abdomen then they had expected and how his grandfather was probably in the burn unit because the wound could not have been closed up very well on account of it being abdominal surgery that needs to drain, but also that with all of his grandpa's stomach fat it probably just did not close because it's impossible to stitch fat together . . . Argh! Awful, awful me! Here my boyfriend is concerned about his grandfather's life, and I'm rambling on about what little I can guess about the surgery being the "knowledgeable" second year medical student that I am. I didn't even ask how the poor old guy was doing. And worse yet, I didn't realize what I was doing until my boyfriend interrupted me, "Elizabeth, enough! My grandpa is not incisions that won't close or infection! I can't believe you! You haven't even asked me how he's doing. What are you learning in medical school?!"
It is this moment in my life, being chastised by someone I love for not showing concern for a patient and his family, that really brought to life for me the book, The House of God. It brought back memories of Berry's concern for Roy as he became unfeeling and emotionless towards the "gomers" that he cares for. The book really illustrated for me how becoming a physician is a process of socialization and so often we are trained out of being caring human beings and turned into analytical, procedure-loving robots, void of feelings or concern. As someone who wants to go into family practice and deal with the "whole patient - mind, body, spirit" I never thought this desensitizing could happen to me - and yet unknowingly I may have lost touch with my nurturing and caring self (if only for a moment).
My only criticism about the book is that it only portrays the negative ways in which physicians try to cope with the stresses and insults that medicine deals out each day. One doctor in the book is obsessive/compulsive about running, Roy seems to get his release from sexual exploits, and one young resident even kills himself. While I certainly recognize that this can happen it left me wondering about what I may become and how I could "save myself" from this inevitable demise.

As a second year medical student whose assignment it was to read this book, I had mixed feelings. Because of all of the other coursework, I was not very excited about the prospects of filling my time with more reading. I was pleasantly surprised, however, when I found myself unable to stop reading, constantly wondering what was going to happen next. Although there are some pretty "racy" scenes, to say the least, I thought they were a well thought out portion of the book. What I did take, however, was the humanness that each of these characters carried with them throughout the book. Without giving too much away, I saw the pain, the sorrow, the humility and anguish that goes into the medical profession on a daily basis. We as future physicians are going to have to deal with a lot of "stuff" as we go along, this book gave us a small, entertaining glance at what that may hold.
I recommend this book to all readers, preferably for the at least PG-13 and up. This book will be entertaining and educational for the medical and non-medically inclined. You won't get bogged down by medical jargon and lingo. Just sit back and enjoy. Learn what "TURF'ing" is.

I was turned onto this book by a friend of mine who is a doctor who told me that I would love it because it's very similiar to Catch-22. So instead of giving you the whole rundown on the plot, I'll focus on why his statement was true and false.

When I discovered Catch-22, it absolutely rocked my world. I had never found myself in a story that was so crazy, contradictory, confusing, yet exhillerating. Since then, I've tried numerous authors who employed the same "absurdist" approach to their novels. Vonnegut, Robbins, Brautigan, Pynchon etc., and yet none of them have ever really satisfied me in the same way. Add Samuel Shem to that list. To say this book is "similiar to Catch-22" is a vast understatement. While reading it, I felt like the author read Catch-22 and said "hey, i can do that, I'll just move it to a hospital setting." The first problem is that although the setting is certainly "crazy" and nerve-wracking, stress-full (like a war setting), it doesn't have the same "fun" feel as Heller's crazy warzone. A war is a terrible place to be, but while reading Catch-22, it was like a funhouse that you don't want to leave. I couldn't wait to see what would happen next. In HOG, like many of the terns, I just wanted to get out of the hospital and go to sleep. The strange actions of both the doctors and the patients seemed contrived. It's hard to explain why but it simply missed the mark.

The second problem is that the main characters, while interesting, aren't quite "compelling." I don't feel like I know Dr. Basch, and I certainly wasn't rooting for him the way I like to when I'm reading a novel. I tried to get through this book but only made it about half-way (which is rare for me to give up on one). That's not to say that this book is terrible. There are some good characters and some funny, interesting scenes, but all in all, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who isn't in Med School.

Shem's book portrays the internship year as a chaotic adventure- an adventure full of success and failure, of self realization and self reprobation. The book is exaggerated of course, and is very humorous in other areas, but hits on many important aspects of what is truly a "trial by fire". The lead character goes through many phases during the year, defining his own role as he discards them. The insane hours put a strain on his relationships, and he begins to lose sight of who his is, only to come out the other side a wiser, and more competent doctor. This, I guess, it the philosophy behind the internship year. Put the individual through hell as a learning experience. The book is a bit dated, marked by "interhospital relationships" that may seem shocking to the reader. However, the pace and humor of this book makes it a must read for the fans of real life drama with imagination.

I think my title pretty well defines this books -there's a lot of humor in it, quite a lot of struggles, and the reader gets to see what an intern goes through...
But some how - the "wild sex session is a solution for everything" attitude was a little too childish in my taste. I'm sure some of it is true to life, but hopefully - our doctors are a little more grownup...

This book gives you some sort of relief, if you work in the medical field (I'm a vet), because you can see, that you are not the only one terrified with the idea, that if you make a mistake or don't remember something, somebody is gonna die.
It gives you some inner peace, but on the other hand, it has a lot of sexual scenes, that are completely unnecessary and out of place, and gives the book a taste of low class porno book.
It also gives you the impression, that medicine is some sort of joke, that 95% of the treatments are useless and that your only escape from the "joke" is to become a psychiatrist, so you don't have to "touch" sick people anymore. It's just ridiculous!

The 'House of God' is an excellent attempt to let the reader understand what an internship in internal medicin is about. Many of the situations are realistically described using a colourful, often sensitive language. All the figures appearing in the story are very classical without being exagerated or unreal. The author talks about everything humans usually try not to see, not describing doctors as brave heroes nor as ignorant idiots, but as humans. Of course Shem did not mention all kinds of problems interns (or some interns) are confronted with during their internship: not every intern has a father who is dentist and who can send his son money to support his 'one-year-holiday'. Not every 'intern' is far from any materialistic problems. Dr.Basch in the 'House of God' has been lucky in the end because he had the tool to win this impressively horrible year: love and care from his girlfriend, who is 'the' real hero of the 'House of God'

but it has a real ring of the ugly truth, heartbreaking and hysterically funny as it is. I read this book when my boyfriend (now husband) was in medical school and he swore that it is all true (with the exeception of the sex...so either 1) times have changed; 2) the author exaggerated; 3) he's protecting me). I would recommend this to anyone with a loved one in the medical profession--just to see where some of the frustration and cynicism comes from.

It seems you expected the author to share his thoughts. Perhaps interns don't think any more? I know I didn't. My brother maintains I became a zombie during internship. We were so swamped with mundane tasks that we'd get through them as well as we could and drop into bed, thankfully. I never dreamed during that time, except on vacation, when I had nightmares about the hospital every night. I found the book true to life, except for the sexual escapades, which fell victim to the Zeitgeist, and I remain grateful to Shem for daring to write it. (Disclaimer: Though I did take antidepressants briefly during internship, I am now reasonably happy in private practice and have enough time to pursue all the hobbies I had as a medical student and before that. A study published in the British Medical Journal found one-half of female interns and one-third of their male colleagues had a major depression at some time during their first year. So I'm normal, and Shem didn't make it up. And he did keep his day job - didn't you know?)

The first time I read this book was in 1981, before starting medical school. I thought it witty but so cynical that I did not like it. I read it again before starting residency. I now recognized a few of the characters. Through residency there were frequent allusions to "buff and turf", "orthopedic height" and what could be reached with a large gauge needle. Although HOG was not a survival manual it did give me a sense of deja vu at times. I read it a third time after residency. My only complaint is that it completely left out an important element of the intern experience; the drug reps.

Being a med student and working to "save" lives in the hospital for the last two years, I can totally relate myself to the main character of The House of God. Even if it was written in the 70s, it still applies in 2004. Reading this novel was almost like reading my two years rotating in the hospital. I should have read this book before my rotations started two years ago to know all the Laws of the House of God! I realise that I do hate gomers too! It is a great novel and all med students should read it before heading to start their rotations in the hospitals. Like Roy, I am heading to psych.

The House of Godd is a book that all young doctors should read. It is also a book that some older doctors should read to remember what it was really like. The rules and the exploration of the Rules of the House of God are the highlight. However the exploration of the sexual activities of the doctors, no matter how true it may have been, is a little gratuitous.

I found this book to be entirely believable, a mixture of black humor in the face of death and overwhelming stress and humanity in the face of dehumanizing circumstances. Sounds like it should refer to war, saying that, but it actually refers to a young doctor's first year of internship, set in the early 1970s.

I am not in the medical field, but from what I hear, it isn't much better today. The only thing that bothered me about the book is the pseudonym the author chose for the hospital and thus the book. He actually went to Harvard Medical School (which he calls BMS--Best Medical School) and interned at Beth Israel (which translates to House of Israel, not House of God) and for some reason that annoyed me.

I guess I was also a bit bothered by the fact that he was able to take a year off and hang out in the south of France after his internship. But the facts of medicine as he practices it--mainly that in order to do no harm, in most cases you should do as little as possible, seems all too wise. The book runs a little long, but the writing is as sharp as hell.

Although frequently exaggerated in it's archetypal depictions of usual "hospital characters", a lot of what is described rings as true today as it did "back then". The hours aren't that different, either (at least not at my institution and various others from what I hear from my resident friends at other hospitals).

This book is really hilarious and made me absolutely ROAR during times when, as an intern, I had hit some lows.

I lovingly called this book (in addition to biking to work) my "survival" strategy for keeping sane.

It's a must read for any intern. Enjoy - and don't take it too seriously!

After 25 years in medicine it was pleasure to read again the stories of how many doctors truly learned their craft. Things have fortunately changed for the good, and I still enjoy the "being with" my patients more than any other part of my job. They are there for me as much or much as I am for them.

Do you remember how you laugh when you saw M.A.S.H.? Prepare yourself to laugh more now. Samuel Shem, a psychiatrist, describes with no shame or censure, what's going on among young doctors in a busy hospital. You are going to cry and laugh with every single human feeling (of either doctors and patients): fear of death, faith and unfaith, love, shame, frustration, sex, arrogance, despair, power, everithing!
As a physician, I saw myself in many of the situations described in this book.
Maybe your not a doctor but you were, are or will be (someday) a patient! At least, for this single reason, you must read this extraordinary book. No matter what is your opinion about doctors and hospitals - you will change it, after that.

The House of God does a good job of highlighting the issues of iatrogenic morbidity and mortality in a fictional setting.

I thought this was a great read and was anxious to talk about it with colleagues. However, it seems many people, especially within the medical community, do not like to discuss the fact that medicine can and does harm people. Discussing this novel with a classmate in a joking manner even got me sent to Dean's office during medical school. In spite of all that, I will continue to recommend this novel to anyone interested in pursuing medicine as a career.

Dr. Bergman has created a classic book of satire that makes the point that although medical education is getting better, patient care is getting worse. I look forward to reading Mount Misery, which I understand is losely based on his training at McLean Hospital.

Jason Begalke

'The House of God' offers a view as to how people were treated when they went through Med school and residency in the 60's and 70's, (maybe as late as the 80's). It was mentally brutal, and those who couldnt 'hack it' either just dropped out, or went crazy.
I work as a nurse in a hospital and have been friends with a few docs both in private practice and in residency. Also, my dad did a stint in Med School before he decided it was nuts, so this book offered me an insight into what they went through. If you know a doc or two personally, this book might help explain a few things...

I first read this masterpiece as a pre-med student in 1980. I enjoyed it, yet thought "this can't be real". It was too dark, too hilarious to be real. After discussing it with clinical interns and professors who were MDs, I learned how true-to-life it was. I still thought it was funny, sad, and heartwrenching at times but I no longer thought of it as untrue. So, I switched my major to Economics instead. A must read for everyone working in health care or using health care (basically everyone). I would also suggest the movie "Article 99" which seems to be based on this book.

Samuel Shem gelang mit House Of God eines der packendsten Dramen, die ich je gelesen habe. Shem schildert darin völlig andere, grauenvollere Dimensionen der Klinikwelt. Ich warte auf den Tag, andem dieses Buch verfilmt wird. Bewertung: Fesselndes Drama! Auch für Laien empfehlenswert, die jedoch keine Probleme mit Körperflüssigkeiten haben sollten.

This book starts with a young doctor reminising about his experience as an intern at a busy hospital in the city. He leaves nothing out and skillfully incorporates his own style of language and phrases. He has these rules of the house of God which are even listed at the end of the book which are really priceless. The unhindered honesty is another great aspect. The book takes place in the 70's and the social genre is not left out. He honestly and accuratly includes his sexual lust and sexual escapades with many a nurse at the hospital. Also, about the dogma of ethics and morality of the doctor's, he shows them to be human and concerned from a very layman point of view. Some things here can be sickly humorous but nontheless interesting to read. An excellent book for the unshockable and interested reader.

There is a dark time from July 1 to June 30th that is called intership. Every doctor that has endured this year values it.... but NEVER, I mean NEVER wants to do it again! The House of God brings many of the feelings to life that plague interns... the good and bad times... The Rules of the House of God. I read the book before and after internship... but the pain was too great living it during internship to read about it...still The Rules apply and I got my UCLA surgery team to operate on the old gomer they were fearful of killing... Gomers don't die! This one went to ground, but never died. The only good admission is a dead admission....with eight ER hits and triage...need I say more... For the unenlightened this is a good book.

The first half of this book was briliant. I finished my internship 10 years ago (before the rules limiting maximum hours that housestaff can work)and can truly say that it captured the essence of the experience. That being said, the book jumped the proverbial shark about halfway through the book with an orgy in the intern callroom. It all went downhill from there.

In reading Shem's masterpiece on the trials and tribulations of the intern year it made me reflect on my own thoughts of what medical school is like. His books gives a fairly pessimistic but very realistic view of medicine and how doctors often times look at patients. At this point in my career(MS2 soon to be MS3 once I pass boards) I still am fairly idealistic about medicine and the opportunity to work with and help people. This book upon first read(before medical school) shocked me such that I believed that Shem was writing complete fiction which was not founded on reality at all. After two years through I see that he has made some very clever and perceptive assertions and am starting to see what he is talking about. Although I still have not bought into "the only good patient is a dead patient" mentality. I still feel too idealistic for that. Catch me after two more years though and I may have a very different opinion.
For all of you who are not in the medical field this is an excellent book that provides nice insides to the behind the scenes of medicine. For those of you in the medical field it might shock you how right and accurate he is with his descriptions. Regardless, this book is provacative and a quick read. I definetly recommend it and hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I did.
--Joaquin

I read this book years ago, but I still use references from it today with friends and medical colleagues. I even now have a faculty job at one of the referenced hallowed institutions. It's hilarious, focally outrageous, and somewhat self-serving, but it did have some salient, useful insight. Now I want to read it again.

Set in a time frame 30 years ago, this sexually explicit novel portrays an accurate description of a large teaching hospital and a resident's first year of practice after medical school. While some of the characters are clearly stereotypes, it is easy for modern practitioners and the public to identify with the stories and experiences described in this book. Even now, the residents at my own facility reference the "contrived" terminology and suffer through the moral/ethical dilemmas recounted in this novel. I highly recommend it as a character study and as one person's account of the challenges of modern medicine.

I'm an old, retired RN who trained in a NY city hospital. Read this a gazillion yrs ago and while times have changed so much is still true ! Thought it was the funniest book I'd ever read and after all this time am buying it so I can share it w/ others. It tells it like it is... emotional waves of ups and downs.. The giggles one gets when things are out of control, the anguish when regardless of your efforts things don't go well..."Gomer" became part of our vocabulary in my 25 yrs of Intensive Care. The story doesn't portray the staff as disrespectful but human. Each character is a unique personality. If you've never worked in a munincipal facility you'll think otherwise.. If you've walked in those halls you'll recognize most of the characters..If you haven't...DON'T JUDGE ! Enjoy it and try to put yourself in the position of the staff.. How would YOU respond to the nightmares of medicine?

Having worked in the ED for many years, I finally read this book, and was comforted that someone was actually brave enough to put into print the things most of us only think. It was such an inspiration to me, that I wrote my own book about emergency medicine, Haiku STAT! I'm not nearly the great story teller like Samuel Shem, so I went with the collection of Haiku, but I tried to make them as dark, painful, and true, as the rules in the House of God.

House of God is a MUST read for anyone with experience in the medical field, and for those that have no medical experience, it is still worth the read, and believe me, it is more true than fiction.Haiku STAT!: A Poetic Look at the Harsh Realities of Emergency Medicine.

This book is a classic. To be fair, it is a bit out-dated. Internship is not quite what it used to be....but many of the stories still ring very true. And, in any event, it is a great read in its own right. If you really want to know what internship is like, get "Hospital Survival: Lessons Learned in Medical Training" by Grant Cooper. But, for pure entertainment and a look at how internship was in the 1970s-80s, read House of God.

I've often heard comments by medical students and non-medics who found this book a little too cynical and unrealistic. I read the book after I finished my House Jobs in the UK (internship) and although there is a degree of artistic licence, I recognized almost every character and situation described on its pages.

The book gives a truely accurate description of that first year on the job after university and is at the same time both hillarious and deeply depressing. If you are a medical student it's certainly worth a read but perhaps not in the summer holiday before you start working - I doubt you'd ever want to turn up. If you already work in a hospital read it and see if you can spot any of your colleagues in it.

I can't speak for the States but the training over here has changed alot now and interns are no longer subjected horrors of 3 days without sleep or having to make life and death decisions at 2am with absolutely no hope of senior support. Mind you, at times it was also an aweful lot of fun.

I'm sure that any junior doctor today will be sick of hearing their seniors harp on about how bad it was in their day and so it's worth you lot reading this book if for no other reason than to realise just how good you've got it now and stop your bloody moaning.

It's interesting to hear non-medical opinions on HOG. This book is actually not that humorous. I can see how it "seems" to be; with all the dark morbid humor and the LAWS. A colleage told me not to read this book until i had finished my 3rd year of MD-school. Why? Until you put yourself on the ward, this book doesn't mean much to you. I didn't believe him and read it at the end of my 2nd year. I read it again at the end of my 3rd year. It was like i was reading a different novel. There is no way to clearly describe the sensation of having 7 admissions on call...all gomers....trying desperatly to BUFF and TURF them.
This book is a must read for the doctor to be. The nonmedical world has to realise that what seems as perverse dark sick humor (gomers, turfing, not doing anything, the only good admission is a dead admission) is merely an attempt to survive the onslaught of internship. Balance fatigue with limited knowledge and throw in some unparralled responsibility and you get a taste of what it's like.
House of God does just that.
Oh.. and never ever.... go to a teaching hospital in July. :)

I didn't read this book until I was a resident. The hospital I trained at wasn't anything like this in actuality, but the personalities, struggles, and oddities seem to be universal. A must-read for anyone in medical training.

I'm goint to give you the advice nobody gave me: if you plan on being a doctor, do not read this book until you are well into your residency. Do not read it if you are in pre-med. Do not read it before your internship. This book is the most disconcerting, alarming and depressing books ever written. Shem, brilliant in the art of storytelling, creates a hospital out of hell, where basic human emotions are at loss, where nobody cares, where nobody is responsible or functioning normaly--as a doctor, as a human being. And Shem does this with such force and delivery that you can actually believe that such hellish places exist, that there's no hope or love in hospitals, just a perverted dance with death and despair.
Brilliant book. Wonderful writing. Pure poison.

My first career was working in a county hospital as an administrative coordinator for a Family Practice Residency program and as the Credentialing/Privileging coordinator for all of the staff physicians there. What an eye-opener this book was for a then 20-something young woman fresh out of business school. My actual experiences never reached the base level that is described in this book but we were a small facility located in the San Francisco East Bay Area in the 'burbs.

That being said, I think that there is a lot of humor, entertainment and enlightenment value to the book for interns/residents and attendings and the general public who should understand that doctors are human beings. They are not "God-like" and they become just as "irreverent" within their professions as Policemen, Teachers....er...Politicians do.

I have read and re-read this book at least twice and I consider myself a fan of doctors in general.

A fun read. Enjoy.

Haven't finished it yet.....this book would be enjoyed better by someone who is or has gone through their internship as a doctor....
My doctor recommended it because he says it is so well written and that it brought back many memories for him as an Intern.... he said.... that is just how life was......

So many reviewers saw this book as humorous. I cried through the whole thing, and was left with a pretty nasty feelin after that. but not because it's a bad book. It is well written, although the characters are not very broad and there is a serious problem of the writer's ego mixing with his character's. But the excellent writing wasn't the point of the book for me. Anyone with an inherent fear of doctors , should read this book to see that he was right.

I have read this book three times: When I was a first year medical student I found it to be exaggerated. When I was in my intern year I found it to be an understatement. Reading it for the third time in the middle of my residency allowed me to have a more mature perspective of this book. I find it to have a striking resemblence to another classic: "Catch 22" by Joseph Heller. I will start by saying that both books are NOT great literature masterpieces . They do not stand in one line with Joyce, Amos Oz, Steinback or Hemmingway and as a work of art they therefore deserve , in my opoinion 2 or 3 stars of rating.They do share, however, a unique quality which is this: They both manage to capture in an astonishing accurracy, through sarcasm and absurd, all that is twisted, wrong and cruel in the systems they deal with. Being both a doctor and an IDF officer, I can testify from personal experience that both the military and the medical field have a lot in common , mainly that they both are a stressfull, wearing enviroments. Shem's accurate perception lead this book to being the sharpest description of this enviroment so far, just as "Catch 22" was in its times I therefore share the enthusiasm of the majority of the reviewers of this book, as much as I can identify with the ones who found it disappointing in the literary sense. It therfore gets a rating of 4.

This is a must read for any medical professionals, especially medical students who are deciding what specialty to enter. It is a legendary book in medical school, with good humors, lots of basic knowledge on the ways of medical education as well as give you an understanding on the pitfall of our medical system.

A wonderful wildly provocative heartbreaking book. I enjoy the journey of Roy Basch and his fellow interns dissecting the real world in the most famous teaching hospital.
This book reflects -- how alarming & realistic medicine can be, albeit the irony in medicine inevitably exist in one way or the other.
My first idiom I learned "Knock My Socks Off" which I perfectly describe in this book. Awesome, Provocative, Brilliant with Wild Sense of Humor!!!=).

At the time, Doctors were Gods, and nurses were slaves. The patient was somehow a non-being. The book was right for its time, and is one that is enjoyable thirty years later. Howl with laughter, cringe in fear, this tumescent book will engage you throughout.

As a medical student this book was recommended on several accounts by both patients, residents and fellows and held in high acclaim.

To be honest, upon reading, I found the lead character rather unlikable. He is transparent as he projects those he holds in favor in a bright light (which is understandable given it's his book) and those he dislikes as people who can do no right-Joan and her casserole is a case in point. In this sense, he does what psychologists would refer to as splitting, and I found it shallow. Beyond this, I personally felt him to be rather self-righteous, whiny, and complaining while holding those he held in favor in high esteem. I gave up around page 163 out of lack of interest for his character. He could have jumped off a ledge as Joan's father for all I cared!

That said, he seems to have amassed many fans among the layman and is recommended reading by the general public- I can't endorse this, however. Happy hunting, should you so choose. I am in the minority of negative reviews, so it seems...

Samuel Shem gives the reader a hysterical, yet frightening view of life as an intern. The deeds and misdeeds of the new doctors at times border on the incredulous, yet demonstrate the irony of the hospital titled House of God. For it is not an institution filled with white-coated divinities, but with people. Humans, who cannot, try as they might, separate themselves from their backgrounds, biases, sexual desires, emotional needs, mistakes---their humanness.

this review is being done on my kindle. i have been waiting for this to be a kindle version and now im very excited.
any premed student should be required to read this book before going to med school.

Please pardon such a brief review, just adding emphasis to what some of the other 5-star reviewers have contributed.

The best summation I have heard of internship was told to me by one of my chief residents while I was a scrub/peon/intern:
"When you are an intern, LIFE IS HELL."

Tip of my hat to Dr. Shem.

This book is so clever and witty!! I am a third year medical student and after this book was suggested to me by many of my preceptors, i finally found some time to read it!!! If you love the TV series "SCRUBS," then you'll LOVE THIS BOOK!!!

We read this book for a second year medical school elective seminar, along with several other med student/intern type books. As a second year student, i found some of the books stressful but house of god, entertaining! with all of its hellishness, the author at least had some humor and coping skills that were interesting and entertaining. the sex, a little over the top, but then again he is a man...

This book knocked my socks off! I loved it as a 4th year med student and I love it more as an intern! Humor like this is a way to survive life in the hospital and we read it as part of our intern book club! A must read!

This is now a hallowed classic, yes it's dated (set in the 70s) but that doesn't stop the impact and the occasional period point (like the sexual promiscuity) is easily overlooked.
I met Shem (a pseudoname)in the 80s at a meeting (he's a psychiatrist from Boston) and although I'm sure other reviewers have met him as well, he was very much full of himself with us. Most of us were not impressed....especially since he was not open to any criticisms of either his book or the issues surrounding patient care failings of the American health care system.
That said, the book should be required reading for anyone serious about a medical career. But you should read better stuff as well....start with any poem or story by John Stone, William Carlos Williams' Doctor Stories, Richard Selzer's books (especially Letters To A Young Doctor), and Jay Katz' The Silent World of Doctor and Patient.

classic story of the life of an intern......a bit jazzed and sexercised up but if you were ever an intern so much of this book will hit the spot.....I love the line about "from her underground bunker the page operator scored a direct hit on my colon".....I remember my first admission as an intern...in the MICU at Stony Brook University Hospital

I attended Harvard Medical school at the time this book's content took place. I actually know one of the doctors who was one of the embellished in the book. I read this book over 25 years ago. I really enjoyed the reread in 2010. I would recommend this book to anyone, but especially to anyone in the medical field. Unfortunately, some of the content was/is true.

This book deserves praise. The characters and events in the book are just amazing. 1984 used to be my absolute favorite book. I'm glad to say the torch has been passed (sorry George). The sexuality of the first chapter will captivate, the stories throughout will horrify, Jo will piss you off, you will love The Fat Man. Anyone looking for a great read will not be disappointed.

A fascinating look inside a doctor's year as an intern. This semi-autobiographical tale does come off as a bit dated at times, but it's influence can be felt whenever you watch an episode of St. Elsewhere, Scrubs, or even Grey's Anatomy. An interesting read that I highly recomend to anyone doing any kind of internship.

I agree with the reader from Chicago. This is a wrenching story of disillusionment and personal transformation, and a shocking look at post-graduate medical education. I found the author's inability to write easier to stomach, however, than his frequent bewildering digressions. I suggest just skipping the longer paragraphs all together- the one-liners hold most of the story's punch.

definitely, the best best best book i have ever read! amazing medical humor and sad truth about medicine - i was laughing loud and some tears escaped too :)
im reading this book again, again and again - i can quote any time any line. i adore this book, as im medic.student.

Great read even if a little dated now. If you have an interest in medical training at a top rated hospital in the last century this book is for you. Really sheds some light on how our physicians were trained.

As a second-year medical student, this book read more like a horror story than like a "classic novel of life and death in an American hospital." Filled with the cynicism and free thinking that was supposed to embody the 70's, the author's mainstay over-the-top-shocker style of writing immediately becomes dry and lifeless before the reader ever notices how poorly the characters are developed. The book could better be interpreted as an emotional outlet for someone who became disenchanted with medical training, lost their way and exercised defense mechanisms that harmed both colleagues and patients.

However, the author does bring to light important issues such as how medicine is taught/learned, the sometimes grim realities behind that training and the importance of outside support vs. internal defense mechanisms in maintaining perspective on a challenging course.

The zany humor highlights the amazing ability of Shem to create believable charactors. I read this book once a year whether I need it or not. I would suggest anyone, especially in the medical field, read this book.

Great book which reflects medical training about 30 years ago.

However, with the new emphasis on work hour regulations, an 80 hour week, no call, and relatively few American medical graduates going into the type of Internal Medicine training described in the book, it is kind of a fossil.

The House of God by Samuel Shem, MD

This is the fourth or fifth time I've read this book. Each time I take a star off in my review.

My first time was just before I started my internship at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. The last one was today. Originally written in 1978, under the shadow of the Nixon Watergate scandal, the book covers a year in the internship of Dr. Roy G. Basch at The House of God - a hospital built by very rich Jews so that Jewish doctors could get trained.

Dr. Basch comes from an idealistic pursue of the practice of medicine and is immediately confronted with the reality of GOMERes - an acronym for Get Out of My Emergency Room - patients. Goreres are very old people with incurable diseases that The House of God is determined to keep alive because it means monetary compensation for the hospital. Gomeres don't die and they can always hurt you more - two of the laws that Basch's savvy resident - The Fat Man - has created to help in the survival of interns. By doing nothing to the gomeres, they improve their condition. By intervening, they get worse. The book's satire is painful and very negative to the practice of medicine culminating in the final law: The practice of medical care is to do as much as nothing as possible.

Basch suffers from one bad experience to the next and it climaxes with the suicide of Wayne Potts - one of the interns. His descent into madness is broken thanks to the intervention of his girlfriend - and future wife - Berry, and two policemen - Sargent Finton Gillheeny and Officer Quick - who hang out in the House of God's ER to learn from the brilliant minds of the educated medical professionals. After being rescued from impending doom, Basch realizes he needs to get away from medicine and opts to do a psychiatry residency instead - after a year off.

Having passed the zenith of a successful career in Obstetrics and Gynecology and currently retired - I have a different perspective on this interesting work: medicine is not for everyone. The only purpose of the internship and residency programs in our country is to weed away those who are not fit to practice medicine. Dr. Basch had no business being an internist and his residency save the world from a very bad doctor being allowed to practice. For the truth is that no matter where you are in your career, it will always be the same: long hours and lots of work.

I'm scared of those who are trying to make resident loads"easier.' I feel they are doing a disservice to the American public. When I was working as a private attending in the western suburbs of Chicago, I worked 36 hour shifts. I worked tired and sometimes with little sleep. But I loved my work. I still miss the craziness of multiple deliveries in one night. It was my residency experienced at Cook County hospital who prepared me for that task.

By shielding the new residents from hard work, I fear we'll be allowing unqualified doctors to practice freely. From the days when C-Section rates were 2% to today when the rate is 33% - Obstetricians have lost the art of our profession. It's of no surprise tome that the US is the only industrialized nation where maternal mortality is increasing and our infant mortality rate is ranked 167th in the world. I strongly feel that we need to keep residents' workload more to the tune of what the real world will expect them to tolerate.

I bought this book because I had heard many mixed reviews about it from people in the medical profession. I myself have found that there are a few nuggets of insightful commentary hidden amongst the sexist, racist, mindless, lewd and all together poorly written drivel which makes up most of the book. This being said, the book can be pretty funny at times, and might be worth a read for a laugh or two if you can stand all the pointlessly captalized words.

Waited until after residency and fellowship to read this book. Amusing how many of the phrases have become part of the vernacular in medicine but, overall, the stories are painfully boring and redundant. This book is mostly of historical interest only. Wouldn't put it at the top of my "must read" list.

As a second year medical student, I had been told by many people that this was the book to read. However, I found the book too cynical and unrealistic. It was melodramatic at times as well, though it did make me laugh occasionally. I really just didn't care for the overall tone of the book.

This book came out in the wake of similar titles like MASH and Catch-22, and describes life as an intern at a hospital in the 1970s. I read it in 1997, and it made me very sad about the state of medicine in this country.

Fortunately, reading some of the some of the location descriptions in the book, it dawned on me that the hospital in the book is Beth Israel in Boston, where I grew up.

I mentioned the book and my realization to my mother, who said that back in the 1960s and 70s, Beth Israel had the reputation of being more or less a butcher shop, a good place to go if you wanted to wind up dead nice and fast, vastly different from their current positive reputation.

I love reading and there have only been three novels in my life which I forced myself to read (the first was part of a book club so I had to read the book in its entirety to discuss with the group, the second one was loaned by a good friend who loved it so I gave it the benefit of the doubt but I did not complete it, and this one).

There seems to be a consensus in the book reviews for this book that if you're a resident and read this book, it is a sarcastic but realistic portrayal of life as an intern and if you're an outsider, it's disturbing. I am an outsider and yes I did find it disturbing. I don't doubt that it might reflect reality. But the writing is poor, the character development non-existent and the plot nowhere to be seen. In one book review, it stated the characters are great and really portray hospital life accurately. In my opinion, this could not be further from the truth. I kept waiting for the protagonist to share some of his inner thoughts - or just thoughts period, with the reader. One sentence here and one there alluding that he may want to kill himself just doesn't cut it (no pun intended). I patiently (again, no pun intended) but persistently plodded through the book waiting, expecting... giving it the benefit of the doubt, since the book was hailed as a classic and because I am interested (as much as an outsider can be) in the field of medicine/health. But character development never came. And this applies to all the characters. Sure, it was interesting to learn about the BUFF and TURF and Gomers Don't Die which we read about in the beginning of the book, but to still talk about it one-third through the book, and then half way through the book, and then two-thirds through the book... Just the same thing over and over again. BUFF and TURF, BUFF and TURF, BUFF and TURF. On and on and on... You call that insight! Enough already! I suggest the author keep his day job (MD).

As a resident, This book clearly gives a wrong account of the lifes/thoughts of most residents/intrens.Very little of the screaming sexuality/irreverence is true especially in this day and age.Patients health are not taken this lightly and profesionalism is key and indeed emphasized.We now know why there was so many successful lawsuits in the 70's and 80's.

However I am not surprised knowing the Author is a Psychiatrist and not in the aspect of medicine most people will ever get to see/experience.

Psychiatrists tend to think a little bit off the curve.

VERY FEW OF THE STORIES, SCENARIOS AND STATEMENTS AS TRUE OR EVEN POSSIBLE IN THIS DAY AND AGE.

RECOMMENDATION: Not recommended reading.

I must say hat I had much higher hopes for the book. I enjoy reading medical based literature, since I am in medicine myself. I did all I could to get myself through the first chapter, luckily it was short. The baseness of the book was disgusting. How anyone could write of having a sexual orgy during a code, in full light of everyone in the room was beyond me. If any institution was to have anything of the sort going on I would mandate and petition for its immediate closure. The title of the book only makes the issue worse. I would recommend the book for burning, or cleaning up bird droppings, but not much more.

This is not a book about medicine, which I hoped that it would be, but it's just pornography. Disgusting! The author should be ashamed of himself and I'm shocked that he's actually practicing medicine! Disgusting!!!