#186 Surgeon Writers #4: Samuel Shem - author of House of God
Behind The Knife: The Surgery Podcast
Behind The Knife: The Surgery Podcast
4.8 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 14 August 2019
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Rounding out our miniseries interviewing authors, we had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Stephen Bergman who you may know as Samuel Shem, author of House of God.
His upcoming sequel to House of God will be released in November: https://www.amazon.com/Mans-Best-Hospital-Samuel-Shem/dp/1984805363
The STAT article he referenced: https://www.statnews.com/2018/07/26/physicians-not-burning-out-they-are-suffering-moral-injury/
His Boston Globe article posted on his website: http://www.samuelshem.com/v2/what-it%e2%80%99s-like-in-a-country-without-war/
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Andrew was at an age where he was experimenting with cold water therapy. |
| 0:05.6 | And Andrew was also at an age where he was experimenting with manscaping. |
| 0:10.3 | Hmm. So when he discovered he could save up to 40% in the Amazon Black Friday week. |
| 0:16.0 | Ooh! |
| 0:17.0 | He got a Braun IPL hair removal device and now he's sharing his silky smooth dad bod with his friends at the Coldwater Plunge. |
| 0:24.0 | Share the joy this Amazon Black Friday week with up to 40% off, ends 27th of November. |
| 0:29.0 | While stocks last. |
| 0:30.0 | Behind the Knife, The Surgery Podcast, where we take a behind the scenes intimate look at surgery |
| 0:36.1 | from leaders in the Knife. Our guest today is Dr. |
| 0:54.6 | Stephen Bergman or as he is better known to most of us, Samuel Shem. Dr Bergman is |
| 0:59.6 | clinical professor of medicine and clinical professor of Psychiatry at New York University. |
| 1:04.0 | He completed his medical training at Harvard and obtained a PhD at Oxford University. |
| 1:08.0 | He has achieved great success as an author, having written The House of God, |
| 1:12.0 | its follow-up Mount Misery, and multiple other novels, plays, and non-fiction work. |
| 1:16.7 | We are excited to talk to Dr. Bergman today about the House of God sequel and his thoughts on the current state of residency training. |
| 1:23.7 | Thank you for joining us today. |
| 1:25.9 | Why don't you call me, I like being called Shem, so call me Shem. |
| 1:30.5 | All right? Because I can buy my pen name now more than ever. Just call me Shem. |
| 1:35.7 | What drove you towards medicine originally? Well, kind of circumstances, I always wanted to be a writer and I went to Harvard College and I failed my first English writing class so I figured Harvard knew best I had no |
| 1:56.4 | talent and so I studied psychology and pre-med and then I was lucky enough to get a road scholarship to Oxford in 1966 and I started writing then I figured this awful teacher that failed me couldn't get me anymore. I was 3,000 miles away so what the |
| 2:14.6 | hell. And I started writing and I also started a PhD teaching cockroaches how to lift their legs, which frankly was kind of fruitless. And then in 1969 on a long road trip from Oxford all the way down to the Sahara Desert. |
| 2:35.6 | Driving through the desert I had an epiphany that I really didn't want to be a scientist |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Behind The Knife: The Surgery Podcast, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Behind The Knife: The Surgery Podcast and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.