A review by liralen
Between Expectations: Lessons from a Pediatric Residency by Meghan MacLean Weir
4.0
I do like a doctor-memoir, and it's intriguing to me that Between Expectations is so different from [b:The Book of Essie|34503571|The Book of Essie|Meghan MacLean Weir|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1515874042l/34503571._SX50_.jpg|55628862]. It doesn't sound like Weir particularly enjoyed residency (quite possibly true of most doctors!), but I do wonder just how different it felt to be practicing medicine when past residency and on a more sustainable schedule.
I've put this on my 'Africa' shelf because Weir spent a brief amount of time in Liberia, but I question that section's placement in the bookâputting it all the way at the end lends it more weight than strictly necessary (it's not the point of the book), though in a lot of ways it does seem to sum up Weir's feelings about doctoring: throwing starfish into the sea, only to realise that this particular sea doesn't even have the right salt for half the starfish she manages to throw, and she as an individual will never be able to source the right salt. (I could probably find a better analogy here, but...) So many of the stories she highlights (both in Liberia and in Boston) seem to have unhappy endings, and I'm not sure if that's because that was the balance of the work she was doing at the time (a higher proportion of unhappy endings seems likely when you're working with, e.g., micro-preemies than when you're working with full-term labour!) and how much those are just the stories that stuck with her.
I've put this on my 'Africa' shelf because Weir spent a brief amount of time in Liberia, but I question that section's placement in the bookâputting it all the way at the end lends it more weight than strictly necessary (it's not the point of the book), though in a lot of ways it does seem to sum up Weir's feelings about doctoring: throwing starfish into the sea, only to realise that this particular sea doesn't even have the right salt for half the starfish she manages to throw, and she as an individual will never be able to source the right salt. (I could probably find a better analogy here, but...) So many of the stories she highlights (both in Liberia and in Boston) seem to have unhappy endings, and I'm not sure if that's because that was the balance of the work she was doing at the time (a higher proportion of unhappy endings seems likely when you're working with, e.g., micro-preemies than when you're working with full-term labour!) and how much those are just the stories that stuck with her.