One of the earliest works, which was written by Mikhail Afanasevich Bulgakov, is “Notes of a Young Doctor”. It clearly traces the worldview and beliefs of the future great writer, reflected in his later work. Among the main features can be noted bright and good humor, perhaps even some naivety. Indulgently refers to the heroes of his work Bulgakov.
The Notes of a Young Doctor tells us about a young man who decided to devote himself to medicine. At first he looks timid, indecisive, but with time he gets the necessary experience, self-confidence arises. But the most important thing that the protagonist gains is a huge responsibility to the people and patients of this profession. He always rushes to the suffering and needy, no matter what the weather is on the street. Bomgard puts a lot of love, care and warmth into his work, which helps patients to recover.
The protagonist of “Notes of a Young Doctor” is not only pursued by luck and success. Periodically, difficulties arise in his path that he cannot overcome. So, his colleague and friend Dr. Polyakov in the chapter "Morphine" dies. In the story "Blizzard" the beloved of one of the heroes also fails to help. However, the doctor does not run away from insoluble problems, does not despair, but continues his difficult mission - saving a person’s life. Only one thing frightens the protagonist of the work - his powerlessness before the disease that gripped the patient. He is constantly trying to improve, develop, gain new skills and knowledge. In a word, this doctor works a lot on himself.
This story brought great fame to its creator, Mikhail Afanasevich Bulgakov.
Plots of stories from the cycle that Bulgakov wrote, Notes of a Young Doctor, are rather unpretentious, but they give a panorama of the life of a village located in the Smolensk province, and at the same time reveal the character of the author.
"A towel with a cock"
Bomhard, as soon as he arrived at a new place, he immediately faced the need to amputate. Fortunately, the operation ends successfully, the old paramedic praises him and adds that, apparently, the doctor has a lot of experience in this area. Bomgard responds with a shiver that he has already done two, and reproaches himself for lying.
"Winter storm"
The doctor goes to a remote village on an emergency call and gets into a snowstorm. The author’s idea in the story is simple: he does not allow the patient to refuse medical ethics, in spite of any obstacles that stand in the way, and no matter what it costs.
Steel Throat
A girl in the last stage of diphtheria gets an appointment with a doctor. The bombard, infuriated by the ignorance of the grandmother and mother of the child, makes a tracheotomy and inserts a steel tube into the throat for a while so that the patient does not die of suffocation. This story ends with a joke: from all the surrounding villages, peasants come to see the rescued girl, confident that the doctor sewed a steel pipe into her throat.
"The darkness of Egypt"
Bulgakov's "Notes of a Young Doctor" continues with the following story, which anecdotally describes the ignorance of ordinary peasants. It is about a malaria sick miller. The course of quinine prescribed for him and designed for a week, he decides to take at a time, because he does not want to wait long for his recovery. This is what Bulgakov told us in this story.
"Morphine"
The Notes of the Young Physician continues with Morphine. This story is the darkest of all included in the collection. It is actually a monologue of a morphine addict who committed suicide to Dr. Bomgard’s colleague. Bulgakov was very familiar with this topic, since he himself went through the torment of dependence on a given substance, but found the strength to defeat the disease, unlike Polyakov, this unfortunate doctor. Several pages of a piercing story created by Mikhail Bulgakov (Notes of a Young Doctor) show the horror of drug addiction and its inevitable ending - moral degradation, loss of friends and relatives, and personal decay.
"Baptism by Turn"
Bomgrad is forced to take a difficult birth. Without any experience in this, he feverishly reads the manual before the operation, but in the end the doctor has to rely only on his professional intuition. Having completed the operation safely, he reads the book again and remarks that all previously obscure places are now completely understandable to him. The book experience was confirmed by practical ones, Bulgakov notes. The book "Notes of a Young Doctor" continues with the following story.
Missing Eye
In this work, Bomhard summarizes the results of the first year of practice at the Muryev Hospital, remarks without surprise that he has changed a lot both externally and internally, recalls various curious cases. Now, thanks to experience, he looks without fear at a new case, but those who save him from excessive pride prevent them from seeing an obvious and simple one (for example, a case with a “missing” eye). A young 23-year-old doctor notes: every year he will bring such surprises with him, and study will never stop.
Star Rash
In this story, the doctor encounters a focus of syphilis incidence and clearly understands that this terrible disease has a social character, which makes it harder to cope with than with any other ailment. Bomgard begins a stubborn and long struggle with syphilis, but in the end I must admit that a successful treatment requires a system that would be able to break the fear of this disease among the peasants.
"I killed"
The story “I killed” ends the cycle that M. Bulgakov created (Notes by a Young Doctor). Bomgard told him the story of Yashvin, his colleague who introduced himself as the only surgeon with a gun, not a scalpel. Yashvin's story takes place in Kiev in 1919. Petliurists are forcibly taken away by a doctor and arranged by a regimental doctor subordinate to Colonel Leshchenko. Observing torture, murder, reprisals and atrocious customs of the Civil War period, Yashvin makes his own difficult moral choices. At the same time, universal values are placed above professional medical ethics. This is not an easy conflict, given the fact that it arises in front of a representative of such a humane profession.