THE COMMITTEE WILL KILL YOU NOW

In Lycette’s novel, a hospital intern struggles with sleep deprivation, a shocking mistake, and a dark chapter in medical history.

It’s 1992, and 28-year-old Noah Meier is just keeping his head above water in his first year at a Seattle hospital. For a medical intern, it’s a year of 36-hour shifts, little sleep, and no life outside of work. His father was a surgeon, and although Noah’s a gifted writer, he gave up his dream of getting a master of fine arts degree to go to medical school, instead. At the hospital, one of his colleagues commits suicide, but Noah has no time to grieve and is immediately back at work. He makes a careless mistake (“What should he do? What the hell should he do? What had he done?”) that results in one of his patients requiring emergency surgery. As the fallout from the error upends Noah’s life, he reads an old journal that his father kept, which addresses the birth of dialysis in the 1960s. Only a handful of patients were allowed to receive the treatment at the time, and they were chosen by committee. As surprising connections between the past and the present come to light, Noah must make a major decision about his future. Lycette’s novel successfully immerses the reader in the active hospital environment and the lives of its young doctors. Along the way, the author clearly illustrates the industry’s successes and innovations, and provides some necessary critiques as well. Lycette, a doctor herself, makes the wise decision to center the narrative around only two patients’ stories, which focuses the narrative and keeps it grounded when it could have easily become frenzied. The author also effectively portrays supporting characters and addresses widespread sexism in the medical field, especially among surgeons. Overall, Noah’s story is skillfully written, incisive, and unafraid to confront ethical issues head-on.

A thought-provoking work about young doctors, modern medicine, and ethical quagmires.