V.Q.E

An Indian doctor recounts his years practicing in Britain in this memoir.

Gumaste (My India, 2016) completed medical school in India in 1980 and dreamed of working in the United States. But to practice there, he had to pass a visa qualifying exam, which was only offered in a few foreign cities—including London. He decided to take advantage of his unrestricted travel rights to Britain to work there and save money before taking the exam. The author writes openly about the bias he felt toward his temporary home: Even decades after the end of colonialism, he “abhorred” Britain, he writes, with the “animosity” of the oppressed. Remembering his bewilderment at a new country, he effectively contrasts everything—trains, bathrooms, accents—with what he was used to in India. He overpaid for familiar foods from home, and saw snow and lawn mowers for the first time. Alongside these social adaptations was the adjustment to working temporary “locum” jobs around the country—everywhere from London’s suburbs to the Newcastle area. Scenes in which he performs a medical procedure for the first time are vivid. Even more striking, though, are his experiences of racism: A patient referred to him as “blackie” while skinheads on the Tube called him “Paki.” Filling in the early ’80s background, Gumaste writes about race riots, Margaret Thatcher’s anti-immigration stance, and Princess Diana’s wedding. But at times, he focuses too much on contextual information, as in an entire chapter on the Falklands War; though a pivotal moment in Britain’s history, it had no direct effect on him. He also relies too heavily on extended quotes from other texts. The account of trying three times to pass the Member of the Royal College of Physicians exam disrupts the book’s chronology and introduces repetition. Yet “persistence is key,” the author insists; he eventually passed and, in 1983, after two and a half years in Britain, got a visa and a call inviting him to interview in Harlem. He ends here, at the start of a (presumably successful) venture—a nicely literary, romantic touch.

An uneven but quietly charming journey of a physician.