Now a handsome, articulate, married, celebrity plastic surgeon and media star, Dr. Anthony Youn emphasized that not long ago, "I was a tall, skinny nerd with big glasses, braces and a huge jaw." And he was not the only medical student like that. "Most doctors are nerds as kids, fish out of water," he said. "They are not the life-long smooth, self-confident people patients like to imagine and doctors like to project."
Medical school is where doctors change; it's "a huge transition" for most future doctors, he continued. At medical school, "you go from being an undergraduate, where you're there to party and have fun and meet girls, to being a doctor, when people are looking for you to save their lives."
In fact, the arc of Youn's life has been greater than that of many doctors. With his own highly successful plastic surgery practice, Youn now is a regular on the Rachael Ray Show, appears on many other shows and blogs on Celebrity Cosmetic Surgery, which he called "the most-read blog by a plastic surgeon in the country."
Unfortunately books about medical students and doctors tend to be testimonials about their live-saving abilities and perpetuate stereotypes of doctors who have always had all the right answers, Youn maintained. The books are serious because "patients want us to be serious."
But he has a prescription for the lack of reality and humor in books about the making of doctors: it is In Stitches, his memoir that comes out in May that focuses on his four years of medical school with "lots of flashbacks to my childhood." The book, Youn said, "tells the truth, and at the same time, it's hilarious."
It's almost too honest, he continued. "A lot of it is embarrassing," he said laughing. "Parts of the book I haven't even told my wife about. I hope she doesn't look poorly on me!"
In In Stitches, Youn recounts growing up one of two Asian-Americans in a small town in the middle of Michigan as well as his journey at medical school, when he had no girlfriends and just a few failed dates, was 6'1", weighed 138, had a horrible haircut and thick glasses. "It's not to show how cool I am or about my exciting life," he stressed. "It's more to say that no matter where you come from, you can grow and develop confidence." And, most medical students, he emphasized, have "a big element of self-doubt. You don't know: do I really fit in here?"
One of the many stories he recounts in the book is about the first life he saved. It is not the tale of heroics in surgery. (In fact, he said, "a lot of patients' lives I've changed and some I've failed as well.") Instead, it is a tale of connecting with and helping a person make a life-changing decision, one that shows medicine at its best. One of the first patients Youn was assigned to during a residency in Michigan had had a heart attack and cardiac arrest. The cardiac surgeon was trying to convince the patient to have a bypass. But the patient's wife had died of cancer and he didn't care about living anymore. Youn's task, the cardiac surgeon said, was to convince the man to have the surgery. "I had time and patience," Youn said, so he sat with the man and talked, eventually helping him decide to have the surgery for the granddaughter the patient cared about. The man said that Youn had spent more time with him in one day than all the doctors spent with his wife during her long illness. Later he told Dr. Youn, "You saved my life."
In another story, one that shows a bizarre and hilarious side of plastic surgery, Youn recounts that during a residency at a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon's office, he helped operate on a porn star with huge breast implants who developed life-threatening complications. He sums up the effort this way: "We had to place medical leeches on her nipples for her to survive." He added: "It's all part of the grueling process of becoming a doctor."
Youn worked on In Stitches for five years and clearly enjoyed the process, from writing an original manuscript to working with Alan Eisenstock to edit and shape the book.
"I'm a doctor, not a professional writer," Youn said. "I have no notion that I'm Will Shakespeare. I won't say I wrote every word, but it's a real collaboration. I'm getting a lot more satisfaction out of it than if I called it in."
Youn wrote "mainly in the evenings and jotting notes here and there. It was great waking up in the morning and the first thing that came into my head was the story."
In fact, he called writing In Stitches "a dream come true" and hopes that the book will be well received by the general public and become required reading for medical students and doctors. Then he hopes to begin writing another book that will detail his experience as a resident and starting up his practice--with the same dosages of honesty, poignancy and hilarity.--John Mutter