Alpha Docs ― The Making of a Cardiologist

In the tradition of Scott Turow’s One L and Atul Gawande’s Better comes a real-time, real-life chronicle from an impassioned young doctor on the front lines of high-stakes cardiology.

It takes drive, persistence, and plenty of stamina to practice cardiology at the highest level. The competition for training fellowship spots is intense. Hundreds of applicants from all over the world compete to be accepted into the Cardiovascular Disease Training Fellowship at Johns Hopkins. Only nine are chosen each year. This is the story of one of those fellows.

In Alpha Docs, Daniel Munoz, M.D., recounts his journey from wide-eyed young medical student to caring, empathetic professional—providing a rare inside look into the day-to-day operations of one of the world’s most prestigious medical institutions. The training is arduous and often unforgiving, as Munoz and his colleagues are schooled in the healing arts by some of the most brilliant and demanding physicians in the country. How they learn the art and science of untangling cardiac mysteries, how they live up to the standards of an iconic institution, how they survive the pressures, and relentlessly push themselves to reach the top ranks of American medicine, supplies the beating heart of this gripping narrative.

Readers accompany Munoz as he interacts with his mentors, diagnoses and treats patients, counsels worried family members, and struggles to stay awake for days and nights on end. Lives are saved—and sometimes lost. But the rewards are immediate and the incentives powerful. As Munoz confides after helping to rescue one man from the throes of a heart attack: “I knew where I wanted to be: not watching but doing, on the side of the glass where I can help shape a patient’s fate. I would be a cardiologist.”

A unique yet universal story about striving to be the best in a high-risk, high-impact field,Alpha Docs provides fresh perspective on the state of America’s health care system as it captures all the fulfillment and frustrations of life as a doctor in the twenty-first century.

Daniel Munoz, M.D., graduated from Princeton University with a degree in economics, worked summers as an assistant in a neurosurgery lab, and as an intern for Senator Edward Kennedy, concentrating on issues of healthcare reform. He attended the Johns Hopkins University Medical School, during which time he took a one-year hiatus to earn a master’s degree in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, returned to earn his M.D., and was then accepted as a resident in internal medicine at Hopkins, and later as one of nine fellows in the coveted cardiology fellowship program at that hospital. After further training at the Duke Clinical Research Institute, today he is an attending cardiologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

James Dale is an author and marketing consultant whose work includes books, articles, radio, television, sports, technology, media relations, and marketing. He is the former president of international advertising agency W. B. Doner, and co-founder of Richlin/Dale business advisory. Dale has written or co-written numerous books on topics ranging from baseball to negotiation to golf to business to football to medicine.