By turns heartbreaking, hilarious, and utterly human, The House of God is a mesmerizing and provocative novel about Roy Basch and five of his fellow interns at the most renowned teaching hospital in the country. "The raunchy, troubling, and hilarious novel that turned into a cult phenomenon. Singularly compelling...brutally honest."-- The New York Times Struggling with grueling hours and sudden life-and-death responsibilities, Basch and his colleagues, under the leadership of their rule-breaking senior resident known only as the Fat Man, must learn not only how to be fine doctors but, eventually, good human beings. A phenomenon ever since it was published, The House of God was the first unvarnished, unglorified, and uncensored portrait of what training to become a doctor is truly like, in all its terror, exhaustion and black comedy. With more than two million copies sold worldwide, it has been hailed as one of the most important medical novels ever written. With an introduction by John Updike

The sequel to the bestselling and highly acclaimed The House of God One of the most prominent and enduring titles in medical fiction is the bitingly funny House of God, which has sold more than 2 million copies, becoming required reading for generations of medical students and health care professionals. With Man's 4th Best Hospital, Samuel Shem "the comic genius and holy terror of medicine"* returns us to the hilarious and heartbreaking world of modern medicine. After The House of God, the resident known as The Fat Man and his eccentric band of interns scattered to the four corners of the country. Today Fats, now rich and famous, has been lured across town to the House of God's WASPy rival, Man's Best Hospital. But the august institution has sunk from being ranked the best hospital in the country to an embarrassing, and unacceptable, 4th! Fats' mission? To help the hospital climb back up the rankings. But as always, he's pursuing his own agenda. . . At his new Future of Medicine Clinic, the team comes back together to renew their life-changing friendships and teach a new generation of interns and residents. In a medical landscape dominated by computer screens and corrupted by money, they have a daunting goal: "To put the human back into healthcare." What follows is an emotional and laugh-out-loud novel that reflects the issues in American healthcare today, from the tyranny of computer screens to doctor burnout to the greed of the health insurance industry. * Bill McKibben