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Committed

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Member Reviews

I truly expected to like this book. The combination of a new doctor starting his psychiatry residency and the potential variety of cases called my name. But I feel this book never got out of first or maybe second gear. The text conversations slowed the book down and, for me, the dialogue did not have the natural flow of normal, real conversation. The author refers throughout the book to his sense of not being as good as the other residents, and that's certainly 100% understandable for anyone. However, especially toward the end of the book and shortly after describing self-doubts, Stern's pendulum swings to the other extreme where he describes fulsome praise from most if not all professors and peers; "One by one, my mentors came over and told my parents what a privilege it had been to guide me over the previous four years". One of these mentors raises a toast to the author and says "how thrilled she was that I was staying close and remaining a part of our community." He wins the top award for graduating residents and the presenting head of the department says that with so many outstanding residents, it was very hard for the committee to choose the best one, i.e. Dr. Stern. I think maybe in blocking out the book, the author thought this might be a sort of dramatic arc: start out feeling less-than among peers, and through hard work become better than all of them.
I would have liked some literary cinematography. What did his apartment look like? The streets of Cambridge, the weather, other people beside medical residents and professors. The years of training were almost indistinguishable from each other.
Dr. Stern sounds like a kind man and an excellent doctor. He may have enough stories for another book before too long.

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Committed by Dr. Adam Stern gives a background view of the day to day life of a then psychiatry resident. His encounters with imposter syndrome and learning how to navigate his new journey was found to be relatable to most. Stern discusses medical topics, but it is not discussed in a form that is incomprehensible. I enjoyed his writing style, it was descriptive, enjoyable, and sprinkled with humor. However, I did find some portions of the book dull, which left it difficult to read. Thank you to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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Committed, a brutally honest memoir by Dr. Adam Stern, describes his four year psychiatry residency at Harvard Medical School. It’s not just a page by page description of his studies and casework. Dr. Stern writes of his loneliness (Magoo, his guinea pig, is his only companion), his feelings of inferiority and isolation, his desire to find a partner and his complete exhaustion. The book concentrates on the first two years of his residency and some of the patients he worked with. There is Deborah, a bipolar lawyer, whose mania cannot be controlled by prescriptions. He guides her through ECT, or shock therapy. Later in his residency, he meets Deborah again and this time he can help her in another way. The patient that affects him the most is the anorexic Jane. Intelligent, flippant and proud, she’s been hospitalized so many times that she knows the routine. Although Dr. Stern learns that not all patients want to be helped, Jane haunts him.

Committed is a remarkable story of personal growth. By the end of his residency, he is a confident, self-assured psychiatrist who plans to concentrate on TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) treatment. His personal life is also better. Although Magoo, the guinea pig, died, Dr. Stern was married after his graduation and both he and his wife are practicing in the Boston area. 5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and Dr. Adam Stern for this ARC.

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Thank you so much to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and #NetGalley for the ARC.

This was like Grey's Atanomy x100 and to be honest, it was much more interesting. (I know, I know, but Grey's is getting OLD!)

Adam Stern has a great way of telling a story and showing us what he went through with humor and with respect!

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I really enjoyed this insiders look at the psychiatry residency of author Adam Stern. It is nice to read that even Harvard educated psychiatrists can have insecurities and suffer from imposter syndrome.Reading about how some psychiatric conditions are treated was fascinating and somewhat relatable.

The romance in the book was very sweet, and I enjoyed the ending!

After I read books, I tend to look up authors, especially biographers. I was saddened to discover that Dr Stern is suffering from kidney cancer, and wish him nothing but the best.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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I loved this book! The health field, especially mental health was my related field of studies in college. So when I saw this book title, I immediately requested it. Adam writes in a way that is easy to understand, and makes you feel empathy toward his patients. He really cares, and that shows in his writing. I loved the added story of his life as well. Learning about his road to becoming a psychiatrist and his struggles with feeling useless when he lost a patient made him even more human to the reader. I enjoyed learning about his colleagues, and the love story that came out of his experience in school. Great book! Adam, write another one soon! I would love to hear more.

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Fairly well-written but the first chapter could use another edit..
Something about the story seemed very report-like.. Maybe a roman a clef would have been a better genre for the story: then the Rachel storyline could be embellished without violating the real person's privacy.

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Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this book in exchange for an honest review.
I enjoy books about doctors and nurses going through their training. And my interest in psychiatry drew me into this book.
For the most part, I enjoyed it but the whole dating/romance part was a bit much. I understand how difficult it is to juggle all of the workload and try to still feel like a normal human who dates and still has a life outside of training. But I mostly enjoyed the rest of the book.
If he writes a book about his most interesting cases, I would definitely like to read that.

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An enjoyable read taking you on a journey through the training to become a psychiatrist.

I’ve read lots of books about medicine; training, practising and more but this is an unusual aspect and as such is an interesting insight.
There is enough human interest, people introduced and revisited throughout, to hold your attention and keep you turning the pages.

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Thank you for the E-Arc NetGalley. I thoroughly enjoyed following Adam through his 4 year residency as a psychiatrist and learning about himself as he progressed. I enjoy a good peek behind the curtain of career paths that interest me and this is a good one. We learn just how much mental stamina it takes to deal with everyone else’s problems all while trying to have some semblance of a life of your own. The people that have the drive to help others when they are overworked, underpaid and exhausted really are the true heroes. Some really powerful lessons to be learned in here about humanity and listening to others, even if you aren’t in the medical field. Awesome read, I loved it.

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Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the chance to read this. I’m such a fan of books written with real experiences of people in the medical profession. Stories about their journey, their patients and just how hard that profession can be. This is no exception. Dr Adam Stern takes us through his residency as a psychologist, throw in some stories of people he’s helped, this relationships, his own struggles and you leave feeling like you know “Dr Adam”. I’m also fascinated about psychology and mental health so reading the struggles of the people he helps really left me wanting more. If you’re slightly interested in the medical field, maybe you loved medical dramas on tv (hello Greys Anatomy), then you’ll definitely want to check this out.

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This was another I received from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for my honest thoughts, and I was only too eager to give them. When I requested “Committed,” everything about it spoke to me. I come from a family of medical professionals on both my and my wife’s side, and I’ve seen the rigors of medical residency up close. I’d heard some stories about how taxing a psychiatric rotation during a residency program can be, and was very excited to dig in to a memoir from someone who had felt that calling and lived that journey all the way through.

Let me back up a bit. “Committed” is the story of Dr. Adam Stern, a memoir of his time as a resident at the prestigious Harvard School of Medicine. His chosen discipline? Psychiatry. And contained within are four years of some pretty brutal honesty about what it’s like to learn to be a doctor - in this case, to take responsibility for the mental well being of another human. It’s not something that should be taken lightly, and Stern clearly doesn’t. It’s just one of the many sources of anxiety he faces. Impostor syndrome, lack of confidence in skills, loneliness, and romantic struggles all plague him - and other members of his class - through his time at Harvard.

It could all make for very dry reading, but it really doesn’t. It’s pretty light, in fact, rolling along and easy to read. The problem is it feels, for lack of a better term, unpolished. Some themes are belabored while others aren’t given enough attention. Some side characters are really fleshed out, while some important ones are not. Despite the easiness of the read, it can be frustratingly incomplete at times.

All in all, I really did enjoy it. I just thought it needed more balancing to really make it complete. I’ve got so much respect for Dr. Stern and everyone like him. If you’re thinking about jumping in to medicine or know someone who is, give them a copy of this. Let them read what it’s like, and give them another way to measure if they think they have what it takes. Plus, they get a good read out of it!

3/5 stars.

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"Committed" by Dr. Adam Stern was an easy, well written and interesting read. Dr. Stern takes the reader along for the ride of his 4 year Psychiatric Residency at Harvard Longwood in Boston, MA. He shares his insecurities of being a new doctor as well as his successes. He shares enough details of his four years to paint a true picture but not too many to make you feel like he's exploiting people's experiences.

I think this book would be helpful to anyone going into the medical field as well as current medical workers. As well as enjoyable and interesting to anyone.

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It’s a comfort to see the author share his own battles with insecurity with his colleagues during his training. He showed a raw, though sometimes it was a wooden dialogue, into a mental health field riddled with its own issues.

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First of all thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

Before I start this review I just wanted to put a trigger warning as is obvious, this book revolves around people suffering from mental health, primarily those sectioned in a mental health ward. So there’s some mention of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. So please be wary if either of these will be a trigger to you or cause you emotional distress or harm.



I’m a big advocate for mental health, as a fellow sufferer, so I’m really fascinated by pretty much anything to do with it. So, being able to read an honest anecdote of a trainee psychiatrist in a psych ward seemed right up my street.

I found this to be a truly interesting and fascinating memoir into a trainee psychiatrists day to day life. I’ve never really given much thought into how much is required of interns and how quickly you’re pushed off the deep end straight off the bat. I do think it’s viral that these sorts of professions are discussed because they are so so important. It’s really gripping reading how Dr Adam Stern navigates the world of psychiatry and how turbulent it can be.

It can be a very hard read, particularly if mental illnesses/health are close to your heart. You feel your emotions burning in your chest and feel personally distraught for the patients, particularly those who have been released and ended up back in the mental health ward.



One of the only problems I had was that at times, it seemed a bit insensitive. One specific line that made me internally cringe was ‘away from psychotics, depressives and borderlines’ it’s just very reductive and discriminatory. As psychiatrists in training you’d think they’d have a bit more empathy towards those with complex disorders. I know it can be hard to deal with individuals who don’t respond in the way you expect but it’s a much harder job living with such complex and debilitating illnesses. However, if I’m being honest despite the negativity this exudes, it seems to be quite an actuated depiction of mental health services unfortunately.



Despite the negativity I’ve explained, I’ve found this book to be interesting and quite witty at times. It’s a very raw account of what it’s like to be a psychiatrist in training, having little outside life and having to watch as patients deteriorate and struggle beyond your control, and despite your best efforts. It exudes warmth and heartache all in one. I’m really glad I spent time reading this book.

⭐️⭐️⭐️.7/5 (rounded up to 4)

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This book had the tidy narratives of Chicken Soup for the Soul combined with the will-they won’t-they of a rom com (Ross and Rachel-esque) all in the backdrop of psychiatric medical training. This book was a real page-turner.

Unfortunately, it ignored many difficult truths in pursuit of a feel-good book. The author ignored or only lightly touched on access disparities in mental health. He ignored structural racism. This is important when there are disproportionate access issues facing many populations of color. And, despite giving lip service to the unfair expectations medical training places on women, he takes advantage of the double standard.

At the same time, this memoir is a rare one that explores a male pursuit of finding lasting love. The author acknowledges the emotional toll that medical training can exact on residents. He even explores his own talk therapy in the book. In these ways, he shares a constrained degree of vulnerability. That’s important.

But the author never lets himself appear too ugly. This book functions almost like an extended resume of how compassionate the author is, then attempts to make him more relatable by how he simultaneously doubts himself.

The author does bring humanity to his patients, an important aspect of portraying mental illness. But he should have shared more about the pressures of health insurance on medical practice and more about funding issues affecting psychiatric care.

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I really enjoyed this story of a psychiatrist-in-training's experiences as a resident at Harvard. Interesting and thoughtful.
Thanks for the ARC, Netgalley and publisher!

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This was really heartfelt and also just genuinely interested - I was really impressed by how the author executed their own twist on this tried and true genre - it definitely blew my expectations out of the water, and they were high to begin with!

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Committed is Dr. Adam Stern’s memoir of his psychiatric residency at Harvard. Committed is an easy, interesting read which follows Dr. Stern and his residency class, nicknamed “The Golden Class,” from struggling first-year residents to confident last-year residents. I enjoyed reading about his patient, peer, and personal experiences during his residency. I thought the ‘Feelings’ Class was really interesting – and much needed in order for the residents to have a safe place to talk and process thoughts, feelings, and behaviors/events. After his residency ended, I was happy to see Dr. Stern continue at Harvard, especially being involved in the education of future psychiatry residents.
Additionally, as a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner and faculty in a psychiatric nurse practitioner program, I appreciated and identified strongly with the following: psychiatry is subjective – and that is an incredibly difficult concept to wrap your brain around; you will not always be able to help everyone but you can make a difference; and human connection is the most important part.

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The description calls this book "Grey’s Anatomy meets One L" which is a daunting comparison. I have to say that this book actually outdid both. One of the best books I've read in a long time, I was left breathless at the end. Stunningly good.

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