Baby Doctor

Here the pediatrian who wrote A Not Entirely Benign Procedure delivers a riveting, sometimes wry account of her pediatric residency. Klass's metamorphosis from insecure medical intern to confident practitioner begins during her first night on call in the neonatal intensive care unit of a Massachusetts hospital, where, surrounded by preemies in incubators, she is so frantic with the awesome responsibility that she finds herself unable even to fill out an X-ray form correctly. We get a colorful, candid view of the exhausting, exhilarating and dehumanizing resident subculture, as in ``Did you feel that mass in room 8?'' or ``Wheezer asthmatic in the E.R.!'' There are snapshots of sapped interns crying in bathrooms; of young patients who know as much about their maladies as the interns do; of teens doomed with cystic fibrosis flirting with each other in the hallways; of pediatric AIDS sufferers. Klass also reflects, as a more experienced physician, on such questions as whether women make better doctors than men do (she says yes) and what parents should do when prenatal tests predict birth defects. An inspiring coming-of-age story and an inside look at medical education. (May)