Word: lebaron
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...culpa to the networks for a million dollars. Such books usually break down into one of three types: gripes, boasts or confessions. Few are flexible enough to encompass all of these forms, but those that do can evoke sympathy for the writer and emnity for his oppressors. Charles LeBaron's Gentle Vengeance--An Account of the First Year at Harvard Medical' School is this protean type; complaining and bragging, it is an autobiography in institutional clothing...
...LeBaron has a lot of company on the inside. Harvard circuit. Love Story reduced the life of the undergrad to sports and sex. One L demonstrated the collective ego of the Harvard Law School, and The House of God wildly captured the spirit of interns at Beth Israel Hospital. Paper Chase even scamed its way onto TV. There was little territory left for a writer to snatch, so LeBaron now moves us into the classrooms and anatomy labs of Harvard Medical School or, as Samuel Shem called it in House of God. BMS--Best Medical School...
...LeBaron is not your typical medical student. At 34 he's the oldest in his class, and a man with a career already behind him. After working 13 years in health service as a social worker and an orderly, he knows the medical establishment from the bottom up. When he tells of the doctors who won't take time to speak with anyone but other doctors, on of the administrators who never make it into the trenches to observe what they're administering, he does so with a working-class sensibility. They've never had to subdue a raging schizophrenic...
...also knows his writing. As the author of a published novel, LeBaron is a talented narrator with a gift for fluid glibness. Thus, he seems like the perfect person to write an expose on the training of doctors--the most criticized profession in this country besides politics...
...main problem is that LeBaron is more than an observer. He is the star--in fact, he is the only intelligent being in his book. Sometimes he's open with his conceit: "But I had guts, all right. Better to act modest though." More often he simply takes to demeaning all those around him. His professors are generally insulting, harsh, sexist, and self-satisfied. His fellow students are completely absorbed in their books, frustrated, awed, and for the most part heartless cowards. According to LeBaron, they aren't even interested in what they study...