Critically acclaimed book COMMITTED now available in paperback!

Committed is a memoir about Dr. Adam Stern’s psychiatry residency training, overcoming impostor syndrome, and learning the value of human connection.

It was a PEOPLE magazine BOOK OF THE WEEK and an Amazon EDITORS’ PICK for BEST BIOGRAPHIES AND MEMOIRS as well as an Amazon Best Seller!

Grey’s Anatomy meets One L in this psychiatrist’s charming and poignant memoir about his residency at Harvard.

Adam Stern was a student at a state medical school before being selected to train as a psychiatry resident at one of the most prestigious programs in the country. His new and initially intimidating classmates were high achievers from the Ivy League and other elite universities around the nation. Faculty raved about the group as though the residency program had won the lottery, nicknaming them “The Golden Class,” but would Stern ever prove that he belonged?

In his memoir, Stern pulls back the curtain on the intense and emotionally challenging lessons he and his fellow doctors learned while studying the human condition, and ultimately, the value of connection. The narrative focuses on these residents, their growth as doctors, and the life choices they make as they try to survive the grueling four-year residency. Rich with drama, insight, and emotion, Stern shares engrossing stories of life on the psychiatric wards, as well as the group’s experiences as they grapple with impostor syndrome and learn about love and loss. Most important, as they study how to help distressed patients in search of a better life, they discover the meaning of failure and the preciousness of success.

Stern’s growth as a doctor, and as a man, have readers rooting for him and his patients, ultimately finding their own hearts fuller for having taken this journey with him.

Now available globally!

Editions in Mandarin, Polish, and Korean locally published and available around the world.

REVIEWS

  • "By turns funny and tragic, Committed pulls back the curtain on what it takes to become a psychiatrist–and how the practitioners, or the good ones, anyway, can put their own sanity on the line in the service of healing others."

    —People, Book of the Week pick

  • "A mesmerizing memoir...[Stern] paints sensitive and often touching portraits of his patients, who dealt with everything from paranoia to anorexia to severe depression...Compassionate and candid, this is as human as it gets."

    —Publishers Weekly, STARRED

  • "With high-stakes drama, interesting characters, and a predictably appealing protagonist, it's no wonder that medical memoirs are often compelling reading. Stern's is no exception as he recalls his four years of psychiatric residency training at Harvard...A sensitive chronicle about becoming a doctor and the value of human connection and empathic listening."

    —Booklist

  • "This book is a fascinating look at the inside of a medical residency, and it offers a glimpse of many of the often-understated personal costs involved…This well-written, engaging book will have a special appeal to those already in academia and will be of interest to those who are considering it…It is essential and recommended for all academic and public libraries."

    —Library Journal

  • “A meticulous, engaging, scary, and ultimately triumphant three years of going from being a human to a humane psychiatrist. Dr. Stern’s transformation will help doctors and patients understand what’s core to healing the mind: good connection.”

    — Samuel Shem, Professor of Medicine in Medical Humanities and Professor of Psychiatry at NYU Grossman Medical School, author of The House of God and its sequel Man’s 4 th Best Hospital.

  • “Dr Stern’s writing is personal, powerful and preemptive, sharing with us his lived experience so we reflect more deeply upon our own. He is a gifted physician and storyteller with a remarkable story to tell.  What a joy to be invited into his world.”

    — John Sharp MD DFAPA, Faculty, Harvard Medical School and Author, The Insight Cure

  • “An engaging, heartfelt, and often humorous memoir about becoming a psychiatrist. I highly recommend it to physicians, medical students, and, actually, everyone who wants to learn about the training of a psychiatrist in all its warts and glory.”

    — Sandeep Jauhar, New York Times bestselling author of Intern: A Doctor’s Initiation

  • “From his nervous early encounters with patients, to learning how to empathize without becoming engulfed, to the balancing of professional and personal relationships, Adam Stern brought me along through his psychiatric residency with such appealing candor that I could actually feel him becoming a steadier and steadier hand at the wheel. A valuable account of how a medical student develops into a caring psychiatrist.”

    — Joan Wickersham, author of The Suicide Index and The News from Spain

  • “Psychiatrists are often caricatured as aloof and inscrutable, but in Committed, Adam Stern shares the story of his own psychiatric training at Harvard with openness and warmth. Stern guides readers through the fascinating inner world of psychiatrists; their diagnostic challenges and therapeutic triumphs, their frustrations, insecurities, and loves. Committed is a generous, humane, illuminating, and thoroughly enjoyable memoir.”

    — Suzanne Koven MD, MFA
    Writer-in-Residence, Massachusetts General Hospital
    Author of Letter to a Young Female Physician

  • “Committed certainly brought back memories of my own days as a resident but it was also a fascinating way to go deeper into the day-to-day dramas of psychiatric training.  Adam Stern has written an insightful and heartfelt memoir that anyone can relate to who has taken on new challenging work while trying to navigate pressure and priorities.  But it is the relationships that Stern forms, both with his fellow residents and his patients, that are the heart of the book.”

    — John E. Torres, MD, NBC Senior Medical Correspondent, and author of Dr. Disaster’s Guide to Surviving Everything

  • "Adam Stern's memoir of his years as a resident in psychiatry is humane, moving, unguarded, and absolutely riveting. He captures the crowded drama of a medical residency — the dark mysteries of his patients; the yearning, anxiety, and humor of the young doctors-in-training — with a watchful eye and a charming, self-deprecating voice. I suspect Dr. Stern is a terrific psychiatrist. I know he is a terrific writer."

    — William Landay, New York Times Bestselling author of Defending Jacob