What does it feel like to be a medical student during the third year -- the first "true" year of medical school, when eager-eyed but utterly ignorant apprentice physicians are released from the library and unleashed on unsuspecting patients? How does one manage to appear even remotely competent after dropping a ten-pound ovarian tumor on the floor? Steven Hatch seeks to explain these questions, providing readers with the texture of this crucial period for a nascent physician.