The Most Unfeeling Doctor in the World and Other True Tales from the Emergency Room

By: Melissa Yuan-Innes MD

Narrated by: Louise Sproule

When I mention that I work in an emergency room, people usually say:

• 1. Are you a nurse?
• 2. Wow. That must be really hard.
• 3. What's it like?

This is what it's like to be an emergency doctor. That teenager puking up two liters of vodka and his stomach lining at triage? Yup. Blood pouring out of a terrified pregnant woman? Call me. And, of course, the patient who no longer has a nosebleed screaming at me across the department, "You are the most unfeeling doctor I have ever met!" Fun fun fun. Let me peel back the curtain for you. It's not an iron curtain. In the emerg, it's most likely a crummy fabric curtain that too many other people have sneezed on. Come on in.

©2012 Melissa Yuan-Innes (P)2015 Melissa Yuan-Innes

Emergency rooms are tough!

medical-doctor, medical-perspective, humor, essays

This is not an unbiased review. As a retired RN who has spent years translating Medicalese into patient/family speak I love the humanity revealed with good humor. Most of the incidents related are from before the author went into independent practice but are representative of every Western medical practitioner I have ever worked with. Patients can learn a lot from this short book. I loved it.
Louise Sproul gave an excellent audio performance.

A very enjoyable listen.

This is a very enjoyable book! It is very easy to listen to. it also brought back some very good memories!

Nice humourous insight into the life of a doctor

This audiobook is constructed as a collection of anecdotes and thoughts of the author, Melissa Yuan-Innes, who is both a doctor (working in the ER) and a writer.

Unlike the title, it is very quickly obvious that she does care about her patients and tries to do her best whatever the circumstances. Her sense of humour allows her to transform even bad moments into funny stories, and I've laughed out loud several time while listening to it.

But it does not stop at funny anecdotes, she also tells us more about the life of a doctor, as well as life in general. I liked her positive philosophy, which can be quite inspirational for other working women, especially if they combine working with motherhood.

In my opinion, the main negative point was that this audiobook is fairly short – I would have loved for it to go on and on. And don't expect a story arc, it is a collection of anecdotes which are all distinct from each other. The order of these anecdotes has been well thought out, but it is still not just one big story – not that it was a problem for me but at least you know what to expect.

The performance was very good but I can't help finding it a bit weird when an autobiographical piece is read by someone else than the author. The "I" just does not sound quite right when the voice isn't the one of the author. Hence the 4-stars, but by no fault of Louise Sproule.

On the whole, I would strongly suggest picking this audiobook if you enjoy funny tales of the ER, real-life anecdotes with a nice sense of humour... or if you want to discover the secret to doing it all (the author being a doctor, a writer and a mom)!

And if you're unsure, just try the free sample, you'll quickly know whether you like her sense of humour and want to hear more.

Has nothing to do with ER stories.

She mentions she only writes about the funny or crazy stuff. I didn't hear a single outrageous or awesome story. Not a single funny story. This is mostly just about her personal life, her pregnancy, her schooling, her passion, her father, etc. this definitely isn't what I was expecting.