Your life in my hands - a Junior Doctor's Story by Rachel Clarke

Happy 70th to the NHS. (Everyone needs to read this book)

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The Blurb:

'I am a junior doctor. It is 4 a.m. I have run arrest calls, treated life-threatening bleeding, held the hand of a young woman dying of cancer, scuttled down miles of dim corridors wanting to sob with sheer exhaustion, forgotten to eat, forgotten to drink, drawn on every fibre of strength that I possess to keep my patients safe from harm.' How does it feel to be spat out of medical school into a world of pain, loss and trauma that you feel wholly ill-equipped to handle? To be a medical novice who makes decisions which - if you get them wrong - might forever alter, or end, a person's life? In 'Your Life in My Hands', television journalist turned junior doctor Rachel Clarke captures the extraordinary realities of life on the NHS frontline. During last year's historic junior doctor strikes, Rachel was at the forefront of the campaign against the government's imposed contract upon young doctors. Her heartfelt, deeply personal account of life as a junior doctor in today's NHS is both a powerful polemic on the degradation of Britain's most vital public institution and a love letter of optimism and hope to that same health service.

The Review

It feels so very fitting that I am writing this book today, on the day that our most sacred of all institutions, the NHS, turns 70. I, like many of us, feel incredibly passionate about this stalwart of British life. That no matter who you are or what your income, Health care is free for ALL at the point of service. It's something to be incredibly proud of. But you can be proud of something, whilst still acknowledging that it is slowly, inexorably, being broken apart.

In this book, Clarke tells the other side of the political situation that led to the Junior Doctors strikes in 2016. As she quite rightly identifies, you might have been confused about the messages that were spread in the media - about how Hunt planned to move us to a '7 day NHS'. Somehow, in amongst all the spin, the government managed to make this out to be an issue about overtime pay, and not that simply WE DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH DOCTORS TO SPREAD OVER 7 DAYS.

There are 2 sides to every story, yes, but when given the choice of choosing to believe either our Doctors and Health Professionals; who have put their lives on hold to train for more years than most of us can even fathom, who have sacrificed so much because of the harsh working hours and conditions that the job demands, who do it all to be paid what is actually a pretty basic salary (let's face it, you don't go into medicine for the money).... when given the choice between listening to them, or to Jeremy Hunt? I know who I believe any day of the week. Let's remember these are people that work 70-80 hour weeks without blinking an eye. They choose to be in a job where they sometimes have to deliver the most heartbreaking news to people. They deal with life and death on a daily basis. Did we really think they went on strike for the first time ever over a quibble about overtime...?

Clarke expertly brings to life exactly what it is really like to work on the NHS front line. Another book I recently read, also about working in the NHS (This is going to hurt - Adam Kay) did the same, albeit with quite a lot more humorous anecdotes. There is much less light relief in 'Your life in my hands' but it is equally excellent and equally compelling. She writes with passion and sometimes with desperation about the situation she found herself in, and ultimately why she felt she had to play such an instrumental part in the Junior Doctors campaign. The stories she tells are both powerful and humbling and had me constantly marveling that anyone could work with such compassion and integrity under these circumstances. And I think that's partly the problem, we just don't want to believe that things could possibly get so bad.

This is absolutely not an easy read. It made me feel anxious. Anxious for what the future holds for our health service and for how long it can possibly be stretched, before it finally snaps. It made me angry to read about the wilful manipulation of facts and figures the government publicised to try to get public opinion on their side. But it also made me feel positive. Positive about the people on the front line that work themselves to the bone to provide this service, despite all the best efforts of the current government. (I have to leave aside the fact that Brexit will only make it harder for many of the passionate, incredible health professionals from abroad to work in the NHS. Because it will. And we don't have enough home grown Doctors to fill these vacancies. The sums don't add up. But I would be writing this all night if I did let myself go into it...)

This is an excellent book. It feels more like a 'Call to action' than a book. You will finish reading it and ask yourself ' What can we do to protect the NHS and those that work in it'.

(P.S - As a side note, I spent just over a year working in an administrative team as part of the Medical School at the University of East Anglia. I often caught myself meeting first year medical students and thinking to myself, 'You probably have about another 10 years before you will qualify fully in whatever specialism you end up in'. And I just couldn't imagine feeling that committed to something that you could start such a long journey. Somehow there are still young, passionate, compassionate people that want to join the profession. But not enough. I took my hat off to them then. I still do.)

#5star #favourites #Humanity #Reallife #nonfiction