Summary

Adam Kay opens the novel by describing his decision to become a doctor. He remarks how early students make the choice to pursue medicine and how they make the decision ignorantly, the reasons often “ludicrous” (2). Getting into medical school, Kay jokes that the schools care about whether someone has “a huge heart” and is compassionate, claiming that in actuality, all they care about are extracurricular activities (3). However, at the end of medical school, Kay claims that although he spent a large part of his life at the institution, he felt completely unprepared to become a house officer. During the day shift, the job is manageable, but night shifts were like “an unrelenting nightmare”, a time when house officers are responsible for the entirety of patients in the hospital (5).

On one of his first days at the hospital, Kay gets followed around by a...