This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related letter  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Academic Medical Centers  • Medical Education  • Medical Ethics  • Alert me on articles by topic

30 Years Later

The House of God
By Samuel Shem.
416 pp, paperback, $13.
New York, NY, Dell, 2003 (first published in hardcover: New York, NY, Richard Marek, 1978).
ISBN-10 0385337388, ISBN-13 978-0385337380.

Howard Markel, MD, PhD, Reviewer

JAMA. 2008;299(2):227-229.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

Every physician recalls with relative clarity his or her first day of medical school. A quarter of a century after mine, I can still conjure up images of entering the dimly lit, badly ventilated auditorium that became my class' central headquarters and ad hoc clubhouse. In particular, I recollect my intense anticipation as I took my assigned position in the anatomy suite that afternoon—a passage representing both physically and symbolically my entry into the medical profession.

My class' initiation began with the dramatic entrance of our anatomy professor, a revered and skilled dissector who reeked of formaldehyde and was armed with a holster containing 57 varieties of colored chalk and pencils that he used to illustrate his pedagogic lectures. The rotund, precise anatomist sternly announced at this first formal gathering and, at each class thereafter, that we were charged with attaining an absolute intellectual mastery . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Howard Markel, MD, PhD, Reviewer

RELATED LETTER

Looking Back on The House of God
Alan R. Katz
JAMA. 2008;299(20):2390.
EXTRACT | FULL TEXT  

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

Looking Back on The House of God
Katz
JAMA 2008;299:2390-2390.
FULL TEXT