The Soul of a Doctor: Harvard Medical Students Face Life and Death

I really struggled to rate this book, because while it was enlightening and many of the doctors told tales that were inspiring or heartbreaking all at the same time, there were an equal number of stories that showed doctors growing their very own little god-complexes. For every story where a doctor saw a patient as a person, there was another where a male doctor was angry at female patients for exercising their right not to let him handle their genitals (even as he admitted he wants his wife to see a female provider) or who treats an unconscious patient as a learning experience and only remembers as an afterthought that they are a human being.

While the editors of the book see this as hope for the future of medicine, I found it fairly depressing: if these doctors are the best they could do, we can look forward to many more years of many paternalistic, arrogant doctors--though at least the ratio is looking better. ( )