The plot of the book is based on real events. The author, a physician by training, tells of his youth in the 1980s. His dream of entering college did not come true at once. Alexey Motorov graduated from medical school and worked for several years in an intensive care unit. This experience was so vivid that the memories of it are perceived as a novel full of funny, almost anecdotal episodes and fascinating signs of the times. With ease and humor, Motorov describes the life of a huge metropolitan hospital—with all its problems and complications, difficult relationships, tragic and happy moments, and sometimes purely Soviet absurdities. The names and surnames of the characters have been changed, but everything that happens on the pages of the book really happened.