On the Edge of Life: Diary of A Medical Intensive Care Unit

An extraordinary tale, told by the freshly-minted doctors rotating through the Medical Intensive Care Unit of one of the world’s greatest hospitals, collected and placed into context by Cleveland Clinic physician Mikkael Sekeres, M.D., frequent contributor to the New York Times Well Blog and award-winning columnist for Oncology Times, and Theodore Stern, M.D., the Chief of the Psychiatric Consultation Service at the Massachusetts General Hospital and a Harvard Medical School professor of Psychiatry. The entries recorded in the seven-volume “Medical Intensive Care Unit (MICU) Journal” cover a twenty-year period, beginning in January, 1980, and reflect the unguarded reflections of these interns and residents as they are thrown into the chaos of the Massachusetts General Hospital intensive care unit, the last resort of medical care for much of New England, where only the sickest of the sickest patients are referred. Join these young doctors as they struggle with extremes of medical care, the outrageousness of humor in the midst of such despair, their first encounters with death, and ultimately take a step back to appreciate the miracle of survival as the human spirit triumphs over medical calamity. It is remarkable that, even as these interns and residents themselves toil through 36-hour, sleepless shifts, they steal away for a few minutes to write an entry in this diary, to place their experience in a greater context. It is even more incredible that their words, recorded at the peak of vulnerability, have survived.