Doctors

Erich Segal, author of ‘Love Story’ & ‘Prizes’, gave his masterpiece when he wrote
‘Doctors’. This book is all about the lives, loves, triumphs & disasters of aspiring doctors.
The main story moves around the lives of Barney Livingston & Laura Castellano,
childhood friends who support each other through all moments of victories & defeats.

It is commonly taken for granted that doctors are some kind of God that are going to do
a miracle every time & save you from all calamities. We almost always forget that
Doctors can be human beings too. So it comes as a surprise when we find out that the
suicide rate of doctors is eight times the normal one. Also the drug addiction percentage
is one hundred times higher. This should be, actually, expected, seeing we demand so
much from them & it’s so difficult to live up to such expectations.

Erich Segal has lined out all the difficulties in the lives of the doctors in a very accurate
manner. All the tensions of studying, their first dissection of animals & human beings,
how their social lives are affected by their hectic schedules — he really has us feeling
terribly sorry for them all, and at the same time, admire them all the more.

The main story revolves around Barney Livingston & Laura Castellano. They are
childhood friends who learn to share everything with each other since age five. Each one
can read the other’s mind like a book, yet they fail to understand their mutual love till
late in life. Barney decides to be a doctor when a physician refuses to take care of his
dying father & lets him die. He vows to become a different type of doctor, who will care
for all his patients. At school, he is the one most sought after for consolation & solutions
whenever anyone suffers from stress. Realizing that he has a knack of understanding
people, he chooses psychiatry to specialize in, while doing his MD. Later on he writes a
book on the persuasion of a friend, & suddenly finds himself face to face with such
success & fame that he doesn’t want & neither does he need it.

Laura Castellano becomes one of the most brilliant doctors, and is the most sought after
for expert opinions, but remains as insecure about herself in her mind as always. Barney
is the only one who understands all her feelings and misgivings about herself, and helps
her overcome them.

The story, while revolving around doctors of all types, also portrays the sweet
relationship of the two lead parts, and how love transforms the non-believer into
religious, the unfeeling into caring and the best friends into the lovers and then finally,
soul mates.