Adventures of an American Medical Student: A Novel

James Banks is a medical student in Brighton, a rural town in Kentucky's Appalachia, a region stricken with poverty and an opioid epidemic. James just wants to match with a good psychiatry residency and graduate. But he has just received a rejection from a residency he applied to, and he has a bad feeling that he failed a medical licensing exam. Failure is not an option. James must become a doctor to pay off $230,000 in student loans. James runs a gauntlet of clinical rotations in different specialties: family medicine, osteopathic medicine, general surgery, obstetrics and gynecology, internal medicine, pediatrics, psychiatry, emergency medicine, cardiology, neurology, and neurosurgery. He encounters a motley cast of patients and doctors--including a patient with blue skin and a hostile, tantrum-throwing ob-gyn--who teach him how to become a physician. He sees the best and worst in humanity and even patients who have glimpsed heaven and hell. Adventures of an American Medical Student is a compelling, gritty novel that explores a range of human suffering with heart, soul, and humor.