Email That I Just Composed and Sent to author Jodi Picoult

Dear Ms. Picoult,

I am writing today because I have been reading your book Handle with Care. Although I generally like the book for many reasons (including your writing style, etc), I just have to speak up on one 'little' aspect that I have a problem with.

Here is the portion from page 11:
"He's a resident," she said. . . "He doesn't know the way to the cafeteria yet, much less the protocol for talking to a mother who's just watched her baby suffer a full cardiac arrest in front of her eyes."

This pushes on and on the idea that some people have that Residents are quite useless and not ever good enough. Granted, this MAY be true in a percentage of cases, but not true in ALL cases! I take a bit of offense to this from two directions:

1) As the mother of a little baby boy who is now an angel, I learned how to deal with all of the doctors from interns to the most senior attending in our son's case. I found that the majority of the Residents and Fellows - if they didn't know an answer to a question (and we asked lots, and often) - were generally willing to work/ask to find a reasonable answer to our questions. Our son was born with multiple heart, vein, and lung defects (and we did know about the main heart defect at the 20 week ultrasound, but we opted to continue the pregnancy, hoping that multiple heart surgeries would allow him to live a good life - we did not know about all of the other problems until after well after he was born, and could not get off of the ventilator.). We lived with him in the hospital for nearly four months after he was born, and were there with him when he died.

2) My husband started his own medical Residency a mere three months after our son died. He is one Resident who does in fact know what it's like to watch his own baby in cardiac arrest - more than once, too - and to watch his baby die. This experience has changed greatly how, as a doctor, he responds to patients, and to the family and friends of patients of all ages - because he has been there, on the other side.

Thank you for allowing me to email you with my concerns and defense of some Resident doctors. Yes, they are still learning, but people need to keep in mind that some of them do have life experiences of their own, and might actually know some things. . .

Thanks,