The White Coat Diaries by Madi Sinha

 

Grey's Anatomy meets Scrubs in this brilliant debut novel about a young doctor's struggle to survive residency, love, and life.

Having spent the last twenty-something years with her nose in a textbook, brilliant and driven Norah Kapadia has just landed the medical residency of her dreams. But after a disastrous first day, she's ready to quit. Disgruntled patients, sleep deprivation, and her duty to be the "perfect Indian daughter" have her questioning her future as a doctor.

Enter chief resident Ethan Cantor. He's everything Norah aspires to be: respected by the attendings, calm during emergencies, and charismatic with the patients. As he morphs from Norah's mentor to something more, it seems her luck is finally changing.

When a fatal medical mistake is made, pulling Norah into a cover-up, she must decide how far she's willing to go to protect the secret. What if "doing no harm" means risking her career and the future for which she's worked so hard?

About the Author

Madi Sinha is a physician, and THE WHITE COAT DIARIES is her debut novel. She lives in New Jersey with her family. You can find her at madisinha.com.

 

 

 My Thoughts

 I loved this book! As an ER nurse this definately resonated with me. Honestly I will be excited to see what non medical people think of this book. I am not sure if I enjoyed it so much because I nodded my head like a billion times going - yep that is how the ED rolls because there is so much truth in this book. If you are expecting a rom-com I would say it really isn't that. It is more like the struggles that a new physician takes on in a crazy environment.  I flew through this book in a day as I was completely entertained.

Norah - aka Dr. Kapadia is a resident that gets thrown into the craziness of the ED. Welcome to our world Norah. I love that this book shows how things really are. The general public I believe is under the impression that if you graduate medical school, you know it all. Okay people but not every situation can be taught in med school. Although Nora made some major mistakes, I can't say I have not seen things like this happen. Although in real life I think someone would have stepped in and stopped her, but that would not make this as entertaining or as shocking as it was.

I felt Norah's pain as she questioned herself and hid in the storage room. When she had her first needle stick- yep that will make  you question- why the hell am I doing this? Better yet the abuse you take from the general public. She nailed it on some of that. Quite frankly she downplayed that because the readers probably wouldn't believe that patients actually do this stuff. HAHAHA- believe me they do. I have  had someone pour their urine on my computer keyboard...because their doctor didn't give them what they wanted. So Norah's story nailed it!

Why did give it 4 stars even though I loved it? It is because I was a bit put off by a huge moral dilemma that takes place. Let's just say I am one of those "ER nurses" that Norah thought were against her. I would not let that happen on my watch. I would go over Norah's head because it is my job to be my patient's advocate- not my job to worry if the physician is going to be mad at me.

I really enjoyed this book and it kept me flipping the pages. It was better than Grey's Anatomy because the author is a physician and knows the proper lingo. I don't know if some of this will be lost on non medical people, but it wasn't lost on me. Very enjoyable read for me. I loved it!

Thank you so much to Berkley for my gifted copy of  The White Coat Diaries in exchange for an honest review!