[a:Emma Goldberg|20501061|Emma Goldberg|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] is a reporter for the New York Times. She covered the story of medical schools who accelerated graduation of students because of COVID-19. After writing that article she began talking to six students who decided to accept the early graduation option and begin their career on the front lines. This is their story.

All of the six are minorities in someway. Since the beginning of Medical Schools the "white man" has been the one that monopolizes the medical field. All six of these young doctors defied the odds, followed their hearts and worked so that their gender, their people, could have a doctor that looks like them.

They took the Hippocratic Oath on Zoom, and then walked into the "Epicenters of The Epicenter"-Bellevue and Montefiore Hospitals. They did not get the pomp and circumstance of graduation. They gave that up, to do what they were trained to do-help people.

A wonderful expose on the next generation of doctors.



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The interviews of the medical students in this book were very similar to the ones that I saw on TV earlier in the Co-vd 19 outbreaks in the United States. I was reluctant to pick this book as an entry in the FirstReads contest purely because like many other people I have had an over saturation of the COVID-19 stories. I read everything I could find at first, and now I wonder when it will ever end. Furthermore, I am in the vulnerable category, 74 years old, diabetic, overweight, have asthma and hypertension. Hopefully I will be able to see and hug my grandchildren in 2022.

I had to force myself to read it because it is a terrible reminder of people dying and not being able to say goodbye to their family and friends, of the isolation of people who had relied on social interaction. Doctors and nurses having to stay apart from their families while working grueling hours, the lack of PPE, lack of respirators. The list goes and on, medical students being physically and emotionally burnt out with no time to get rest or relief.

In Chapter Three, there is an interesting discussion about medical persons becoming more diverse and how the medical approach to patients is evolving from the old paternalistic pattern to one where patients can make their own decisions. This is happening more and more in the current times of Covid-19. ( )