This Won't Hurt a Bit

"In this treasure of a medical memoir, Au makes doctors seem fallible and funny. She opens her book with her attempt, as a third-year medical student, to retrieve a stool sample from a 300-plus-pound 85-year-old. After she finally gets the specimen, she accidentally leaves the card "with its hard-won brown smears" on the table next to an empty bagel tray. After some epiphanies ("I hate working in the pediatric emergency room"), she switches from pediatrics to anesthesiology. Meanwhile, her boyfriend (now husband), Joe, picks ophthalmology, seemingly a good-hours specialty, but one that actually requires being on call every night for two years. After a colleague says he is sure she'll find a "mommy job," she does land a manageable-hour position. Au seems to strike a good balance between being a good mom, wife, and doctor, and stays humble in the process. In fact, she talks frankly about the fear doctors can and should feel: "If you don't admit to being scared sometimes, you're an asshole." Get ready for a new appreciation for the training and life of doctors."

"An account of medicine, marriage and motherhood, executed with style and enough humor to offset the not-always-happy endings for patients.

Make no mistake: For all you hear about humanizing the process, giving residents more sleep time and so on, medical training has not changed much. Medicine remains a craft built on a strict hierarchy. Med school begins with two years of class work followed by two years of rotations as interns in a hospital's clinics. Then comes residency for several years to learn a specialty and maybe more time on a fellowship, until you finally graduate and can call the shots. Attending physician of anesthesiology Au, who began writing humor while an undergraduate at Wellesley, plunges in on page one describing her experience as a fledgling intern asked to reach into the rectum of an obese, demented man to get a stool sample for occult blood testing. After this episode, she backtracks to discuss the whys of choosing medicine and then proceeds chronologically. The daughter of physicians, she was accepted at Columbia's excellent College of Physicians and Surgeons. At the first student mixer, she met Joe, the man she would marry and by whom she would have her first child-just as she changed her residency training from pediatrics to anesthesiology. So add nursing a babe, finding a nanny, firing said nanny, assuming new and increasing patient responsibilities (with attendant fears and anxieties) and dealing with crisis situations, and still Au and her mate soldiered on. The books ends with the couple obtaining joint appointments in Atlanta, she with a 9-5 job as an anesthesiologist and Joe on a fellowship in ophthalmology.

An upbeat memoir by a woman still imbued with the idealism to serve, but also to be there for her husband and two sons."

"[Au] has a quick eye for comedy and a wry wit that must at times have helped her get through the daunting responsibilities that come with the white coat. The emotional complexity of her work gets full weight in these stories . . . An engaging writer who knows how to entertain, she is also a young mom on a learning curve, a wife who has negotiated a complicated partnership with a professional peer, and a caregiver who has learned how much of compassion depends on sustained awareness that every patient has a story in which she is offered a small supporting role, sometimes at a critical moment . . . after the eight-chapter journey through her formative years, readers will very likely find themselves amused, surprised, touched, and grateful - and wishing for more."

"A refreshingly witty memoir . . . she tells her story with real wit and wisdom."

"She is brilliantly funny, has enormous emotional wisdom beyond her years, and displays honesty and humility that brings the reader to the center of her journey, rather than preaching from a false ivory tower of medicine . . . should be required reading for all women interested in medicine and/or starting a family."

"Honest, irreverent . . .hilarious and heart-breaking . . . this memoir is not just about how [Dr. Au] navigated the medical world. It's about the life she wanted beyond the four walls of the hospital."

"Every five minutes or so I laughed out loud . . . This was one of the funniest books I have read in a long time and it was so poignant . . . PICK THIS BOOK UP."

"Even better than your favorite episodes of ER or Grey's Anatomy, THIS WON'T HURT A BIT packs in all the elements of a truly great read---I laughed, I cried, I cringed and cheered, I learned a lot, and when I finished, I was preoccupied with a sense of awe from the experience for days. In fact, I wish I knew Michelle Au personally so I could call her and say, Tell me more."

"A breezy, irreverent account of a doctor's education. Michelle Au's cheek makes for a witty and entertaining read."

"Forget Grey's Anatomy. If you really want to know what it feels like to be a doctor--especially a new doctor--read this book. Dr. Au hits the bull's-eye."

"Here is the experience of medical school, and parenthood, rendered with candor and clarity and poignancy by one who dares tell us all how it goes as those who aim to heal others learn to contend with their own vulnerabilities, their yearning to know so much, achieve so many competencies, and all the while grow steadily to become accomplished physicians for their patients."

"A fascinating account of how a smart, driven woman navigates the harrowing parallel worlds of modern medicine and family. This is an excellent book by an engaging writer and admirable doctor. It's also a delight to read."

"Funny, accurate, and entertaining. Like "Kitchen Confidential" for hospitals, only less debauchery and more diapers."

"As anyone who reads her blog knows, Michelle Au is a gifted writer. This Won't Hurt a Bit is an honest account of how Dr. Au balances physician training with the demands of family life. Her witty observations of our health care system are interspersed with stories that can either break your heart or make you laugh. They are always poignant, and give both physicians and patients a fresh, insightful look at how medicine is practiced today."