The author of "This Won't Hurt A bit," Michelle Au joined Dr. Melody Foxx to discuss her latest book on LA Talk Radio. The book serves up a candid account of the trial and tribulations of a modern medical education. The numerous episodes in her career are described with feelings, and the reader is tossed from the sublime to the ridiculous and from the sacred to the profane.
Michelle Au, whose parents were physicians, started medical school armed only with a surfeit of idealism, a handful of old ER episodes for reference, and some vague notion about "helping people."
The full title of the book is, "This Won't Hurt a Bit: (And Other White Lies): My Education in Medicine and Motherhood." It is the story of what it took for her to finally become a real doctor.
This story is different from most medical memoirs because it details the author's struggles to live a normal life outside of the hospital. During the small amount of free time she had available, she and her husband had a baby while both were struggling through their medical residencies. Au explores the demands of being a parent and the demands of being a physician--at the same time. Both are all-consuming jobs and both involve ensuring the well-being of others, including keeping them alive.
The many stories in the book range across the entire gamut of human emotions, and the reader alternatively laughs and cries through it. Creating a new doctor and a new parent is apparently a messy, bewildering, yet amazingly rewarding experience. Similar to boot camp training in the army, the journey from medical school to a practice is indeed a difficult one.
Graduating from Wellesley College in 1999, she went on to receive her M.D. from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 2003. She finally finished her residency in anesthesiology at the Columbia University Medical Center in Manhattan. Married to Dr. Joseph Walrath, she has two sons and lives in Atlanta, where she works as an anesthesiologist in private practice.
Michelle Au, whose parents were physicians, started medical school armed only with a surfeit of idealism, a handful of old ER episodes for reference, and some vague notion about "helping people."
The full title of the book is, "This Won't Hurt a Bit: (And Other White Lies): My Education in Medicine and Motherhood." It is the story of what it took for her to finally become a real doctor.
This story is different from most medical memoirs because it details the author's struggles to live a normal life outside of the hospital. During the small amount of free time she had available, she and her husband had a baby while both were struggling through their medical residencies. Au explores the demands of being a parent and the demands of being a physician--at the same time. Both are all-consuming jobs and both involve ensuring the well-being of others, including keeping them alive.
The many stories in the book range across the entire gamut of human emotions, and the reader alternatively laughs and cries through it. Creating a new doctor and a new parent is apparently a messy, bewildering, yet amazingly rewarding experience. Similar to boot camp training in the army, the journey from medical school to a practice is indeed a difficult one.
Graduating from Wellesley College in 1999, she went on to receive her M.D. from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 2003. She finally finished her residency in anesthesiology at the Columbia University Medical Center in Manhattan. Married to Dr. Joseph Walrath, she has two sons and lives in Atlanta, where she works as an anesthesiologist in private practice.