I’m really loving medical memoirs right now, especially audiobooks (borrowed from my library), which are narrated by the author. I got into them a few years ago after reading Adam Kay’s This is Going to Hurt (as everyone did!) but this January I read three, and want more and more! Here are five (three that I’ve read and two that are on my wishlist) that you should pick up if you want to delve into the wonderfully messy, emotional, and often distressing world of medicine.
Hard Pushed: A Midwife’s Story by Leah Hazard
Leah Hazard is a truly incredible person. Hard Pushed begins with a very uncomfortable story that had me going ‘ow, no!’ and goes on recall her twenty year career as a midwife, from the joy of healthy newborn babies to unexpected complications.
Leah Hazard also runs a podcast called What the Midwife Said, which I can’t wait to listen to. I now have so much respect for midwives. Not that I didn’t before, but I don’t think I knew just how much they did – delivery is just one of the many, many difficult jobs!
The Language of Kindness: A Nurse’s Story by Christie Watson
Christie Watson’s story was beautifully written and brilliantly told. Like Leah, she worked for twenty years. I particularly loved hearing about all the medical specialities that Christie had the opportunity to try before choosing which one to focus on.
The Language of Kindness also made me realise that I find stories of children, babies and mothers in need of medical care the most interesting, and the most emotional. I must have cried at least four times whilst listening to this book.
Christie’s also super smart and I loved how she linked philosophy, sociology and history to modern medicine.
The Prison Doctor by Amanda Brown
Amanda Brown co-owned a doctor’s surgery before one day walking out. She now didn’t know what to do with her life, after working as a GP for years, but she gets a call and is offered a job in a young offenders institution… and so begins a new career.
It’s clear when reading The Prison Doctor that Amanda is caring, inquisitive and dedicated. I was so impressed with her compassion and lack of judgement with even the most difficult of patients. She witnessed some horrendous violence during her time as a prison doctor, but it only made her strive to do her best for each and every patient. This is a memoir about a really unique job.
Breathtaking: Inside the NHS in Time of Pandemic by Rachel Clarke
This just came out and tells the experience of a palliative care doctor looking after gravely unwell patients during the first wave of COVID-19. It’s something I thought about while reading the other books; how has medicine changed over the past 24 months for doctors, nurses and midwives?
Rachel’s also the author of Dear Life: A Doctor’s Story of Love and Loss, and Your Life in My Hands: A Junior Doctor’s Story, which I want to read too.
Breaking and Mending by Joanna Cannon
Joanna Cannon seems like a really lovely and brilliant person, so her memoir of working as a junior doctor is on my wishlist.
Breaking and Mending particularly focuses on pressure, burnout and depression – the crisis in medical staff’s mental health, which I’ve come across in all the other brilliant memoirs I’ve read so far; it’s clearly a massive problem in industry.
When there’s a lack of mental health care for the people looking after our mental health, how can we be expected to recover?
Photography by Volodymyr Hryshchenko.
What are some of your favourite medical memoirs?
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