The Education of Doctor Montefiore

Robert Montefiore graduates from medical school and plunges into the sink-or-swim world of a residency in obstetrics and gynecology. He sinks. As if his fears of inadequacy were insufficient, he receives plenty of external validation in the form of dying patients, critical supervisors and incapacitating fatigue. And then there is his love-life. Robert he has fallen in irrational love at first and every subsequent sight with first-year medical student Maggie, and his efforts to woo her all end in disaster. He must find a way to thrive during this four-year trial by fire or be destroyed in the process. The Education of Dr. Montefiore is set in the fictional Chicago School of Medicine Hospital, a place where heroism and selflessness share the wards with vanity and ineptitude, and where raw trainees struggle to navigate the narrow edge that separates remedy from harm. Hilarious and poignant, this novel explores the themes of self-discovery, the role of institutions and individuals in inspiring young doctors, and the miracles manifest in the functioning of the human body.