"So You Want to Be a Doctor?" tells of some of the more humorous, tragic, and poignant cases Dr. Harold Fletcher encountered during his many years as a physician. He tells hopeful medical students, "If you can:

• Give the same medical attention to a woman off the street that you would a Major Hollywood star.
• Extricate Vaseline jar from a drunk lady's vagina.
• Endure the horror of hundreds of bodies and body parts scattered over a field after an air accident or an enormous explosion.
• React professionally even though you are fearful that the small boy, dressed as your young son was when you left for the office that morning, whose bloody head you are holding together, could be your son.
• Have the ability and clear-headedness-without the help of proper equipment-to extricate a jack from the throat of a child who is turning blue, then you may have the nerve and stamina to be a doctor."