Doctor Confidential:
Secrets Behind the Veil
Doctor Confidential: Secrets Behind the Veil tells the autobiographical story of Dr. Rick Sheff’s training as a family physician in medical school and residency. Yet this book is so much more than a memoir of medical training. Written more than 25 years after the events it describes with the wisdom and insight of a nationally recognized leader of American medicine, each story is carefully crafted to teach profound lessons about the journey of doctor and patient, but also lessons in living well. In the end, readers feel that they themselves have been healed through the gift of this extraordinary literary work.

Synopsis
Doctor Confidential: Secrets Behind the Veil tells the autobiographical story of Dr. Rick Sheff’s training as a family physician in medical school and residency. Yet this book is so much more than a memoir of medical training. Written more than 25 years after the events it describes with the wisdom and insight of a nationally recognized leader of American medicine, each story is carefully crafted to teach profound lessons about the journey of doctor and patient, but also lessons in living well. In the end, readers feel that they themselves have been healed through the gift of this extraordinary literary work.
“…every patient, doctor in training, and practicing physician should read this book.”
Excerpts from Joyfully Shattered
Excerpt #1
The first cut into a cadaver
…A new smell brought me back. It began faintly, almost sweetly at first. Then, as we moved deeper down the hallway, it pushed aside the other smells, increasing slowly until it pinched. Formaldehyde. The odor wouldn’t stop growing, now piercing my nostrils, burning with every breath. Just then we stopped before two large, gray, metal doors. For the longest moment, nothing happened. Then, swinging back without a sound, the doors melted away, revealing a cavernous room filled with forty black, stone slab tables, each with a harsh metal light hanging over it. On every table lay a still, silent figure wrapped in white linens. Death hung palpably in the air…
Exceprt #2
Pronouncing death for the first time
…Just as I was heading to the on call room to try to grab an hour or two of sleep, the beeper on my belt went off. I stopped at the nearest nursing station to call the extension number on the beeper display.
“Dr. Sheff,” the voice on the other end of the phone began, “Mr. Walters in 217 has just expired. Could you please come pronounce him?”
“What happened?”
“He was a no code. Came in with end stage cancer.”
“I’ll be up in a few minutes.”
No need to rush in responding to this call, I thought. On the way up to the second floor, the phone call played over again in my head…
Table of Contents
Prologue
Part I Medical School
Chapter I Gross Anatomy
That Final Moment When She Absolved Me of Guilt
Chapter II Psychiatry
“Just treat them like people. They’d like that.”
Chapter III Gynecology
The Woman I Knew So Intimately but Would Never Meet
Chapter IV Obstetrics
“It’s wrong. It’s all wrong.”
Chapter V Surgery
“Who’s next?”
Chapter VI Internal Medicine
“So datz vot psychology iz!”
Chapter VII Pediatrics
Something Important Fell Out
Chapter VIII Choosing a Specialty
“What’s love got to do with psychiatry?”
Chapter IX Electives
“You can use this power for the good of patients or to fulfill your own needs. The choice will be yours every day.”
Chapter X Subinternship
Something Important Became Buried, but Not Gone
Part II Residency
Chapter XII Internship
“Hey, Doc! I’m not angry.”
Chapter XIII Junior Residency
One by One the Dying Were Teaching Me What They So Desperately Needed
Chapter XIV Senior Residency
He Taught Me to Listen to My Heart so That I Might Touch His with Healing
Epilogue