The Making of The House of God

The 1978 novel The House of God is a fictional account based on the internship experience of Samuel Shem (Stephen Bergman) at Beth Israel Hospital in 1973-1974. Funny, angry, honest, and absurd, the book spotlighted the injustices of medical training and the patient care of that era and was pilloried by establishment medicine for years after publication for its razor-sharp version of the truth. This short documentary, produced on the 40th anniversary of the novel’s debut, details the book’s origins and the people and events that inspired its stories.