2013; 300 pages. Book 1 (out of 2) in the “Dr. Jane McGill”
series. New Author? : Yes. Genres : Medical Humor; On-the-Job Romance; Doctors
& Hospitals. Overall Rating: 8*/10.
It’s July 1st, and Jane McGill’s
first day at work! She’s been hired as a medical
intern at County Hospital, in Manhattan, New York. She’s very excited!
Her days at medical school
have ended. Now she’ll get to put into
practice all the things she learned there.
She’ll be surrounded by doctors, nurses, other interns, and all sorts of
medical professionals who she can learn from.
This internship will be a life-enriching experience.
True, Jane’s has a lot to
learn about the way things are done at County Hospital. But she has no doubt her boss, Alyssa Morgan
will show her the ropes. And Jane’s a
quick learner.
And when this day’s over, she
can go back to her apartment-suite and swap stories with her roommate, whoever
she is. Jane hasn’t met her yet. The payoff in all this is that pretty soon
patients and co-workers will be calling her something new.
DOCTOR Jane McGill.
What’s To Like...
The Devil Wears
Scrubs is humorous look at the daily grind of working at a hospital. Freida McFadden is quite qualified to write
about such a setting; she’s a practicing physician in the greater Boston
area. Stylistically, this book reminds
me of Coffee, Tea or Me, which I read
recently (the review is here), and which gives similar treatment to the
1960s career as an airline stewardess. The
title also alludes to movie/book, The Devil
Wears Prada, but I’ve neither read nor watched that one.
The story is told in the
first-person POV, Jane’s. We tag along
with her as she tries to cope with back-stabbing coworkers, psycho suite-mates,
and way too many patients to properly attend to their health. Each of the 33 chapters closes with a brief
summary usually formatted in terms of the time Jane gets off duty that day, the hours
she’s been awake, and the percent chance she has of quitting her
job.
Silliness abounds, mostly in
Jane’s thoughts, of the snarky quips she thinks but prudently avoids saying out
loud. Yet underneath all this, the
reader gets glimpses of what it’s like to work in a busy metropolitan
hospital. Working an “on call” shift can
mean being there for as long as 30 hours straight. Some patients are very skilled at faking
excruciating pain in order to con an intern into prescribing pain meds such as
Percocet for them. My wife worked in the
medical field, and assures me that both the 30-hour shifts and scamming for
meds are common occurrences.
If, like me, you don’t work in
the medical field, then you’ll find the technical details both entertaining and
informative. I could relate to be
echocardiogram scene; I get those twice a year.
But learning why the hospital elevators didn’t go all the way to the top
floor where the “call rooms” are was a surprise to me, and to Jane as well.
The storyline stops at a
logical place, although there’s not much “building
to a climax” involved. There
is a sequel (see below), but there’s a 10-year gap in the storyline between the two books.
Ratings…
Amazon: 4.1*/5, based on 19,920 ratings
and 995 reviews.
Goodreads: 3.45*/5,
based on 63,920
ratings and 5,157 reviews.
Excerpts...
If there’s a seat available, there exists a
very clear hierarchy of who may sit.
First, the attending gets to sit.
Then if there’s another seat, the senior resident can sit. Then if there’s another seat, someone can put
their purse there. Then if there’s
another seat, a homeless drug addict who wandered into the building can sit
there. But after the attending, the
resident, the purse, and the homeless guy are all settled, any available seats
are all mine. (pg. 37)
“Wow you really like him. You’re in love.”
“Oh my God, I am not in love!” I’m really not. “I hardly know him. Actually, he’s kind of a jerk.”
“No, you’re in love,” Kali insists
gleefully. “You luuurve him! You lurve him and you want to have like a
million of his babies.”
I cringe.
“Don’t mention having babies.
Please.”
Kali sighs, suddenly glum. “You’ve got a cute surgeon and all I’ve got
is a diabetic cat.”
“I think I would take your cat over the
surgeon,” I say. “Really.”
“Well,” Kali says thoughtfully. “He is a very sweet cat.” (pg. 186)
Kindle Details…
The
Devil Wears Scrubs e-book goes for $2.99 right now, as
does its sequel, The Devil You Know. Freida McFadden has a bunch of novels in the
Medical and/or Psychological Thriller genres, and generally in the $3.99-$7.99
price range.
“You’re presenting
a patient to me and you didn’t even look at his buttocks?” (pg. 7)
There is a moderate amount of
cussing in The Devil Wears Scrubs. I counted 21 instances in the first third of
the book, none of which were f-bombs. I
presume this reflects the normal amount of cussing that goes on when working in
a hospital environment. The editing was
impressive: I didn’t see any typos, which rarely happens when I read a
book.
There are lots of interesting
interactions between Jane and her patients/coworkers, but they don't result in much progression
in the plot. Jane seems to screw up quite often, even after a year on the job, and her relationships with Alyssa and
her roommate don’t improved much over time.
As mentioned above, the ending
is neither exciting or twisty. Although
both the “Job Training” and “Romance” plot threads are resolved via the
Epilogue, Jane’s relationships with Alyssa and Julia are left dangling. But hey, that’s what sequels are for.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed The
Devil Wears Scrubs. I loved Jane’s
snarky wit when contemplating the craziness of working in a hospital, liked the
variety in the patients she encounters, and was even amused by the Romance
angle of the storyline. This was my
first Freida McFadden book and I gather a majority of her novels are Medical
Thrillers. I intend to make a
trip to the bookstore in the near future and purchase a couple of those.
8 Stars. One last thing. The low Goodreads rating for this book surprised me. It seems a lot of the reviewers were horrified at the work conditions and personal goings-on that Jane is subjected to. And while the medical details herein seem quite accurate, I’m sure Freida McFadden “stretched” some of the character development and wacky events in Jane’s life. Hey, let's not forget that The Devil Wears Scrubs is filed under “Fiction”.
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