Benjamin Daniels > Quotes

“Regardless of the country it is practised in, most of hospital medicine is painting over the cracks rather than fixing the wall.”
― Benjamin Daniels, Confessions of a GP

“We don’t give up on our patients with diabetes because they can’t be cured. Instead, we do our best to control their symptoms as best we can and try to work with them to give them the best possible quality of life.”
― Benjamin Daniels, Confessions of a GP

“I hate it when this happens. You meet someone you think is nice enough and they turn out to be a raging bigot. It’s so much easier to hate racists when they fulfil my expectation of being all-round arseholes.”
― Benjamin Daniels, Confessions of a GP

“Surgeons don’t cut you open for fun. They would probably rather be playing rugby or getting very drunk and accusing each other of being gay. That is what they like doing best. They will only cut you open if they really have to. If you decide you don’t want to be operated on, they will be only too happy to have one less patient on their ever-growing waiting lists. Very few surgeons are good at the touchy-feely sensitive stuff, but then us touchy-feely GPs would be rubbish at fixing a broken pelvis or repairing a burst aorta. You should see the mess I make trying to carve a roast chicken! We each have our skills and if it were me that was in need of an operation, I would happily put up with a slightly insensitive posh rugby boy if I knew that he was a good surgeon and could put me back together again.”
― Benjamin Daniels, Confessions of a GP

“I felt pretty shitty when that lad died. The consultant took me aside and said that a cardiologist can’t expect to stop all his patients from ever having heart attacks, he just has to look after his patients as best he can and try to prevent as many as possible. It’s the same being a psychiatrist or GP. You can’t expect to save all your patients from suicide.”
― Benjamin Daniels, Confessions of a GP

“Thanks to Dr Nick Edwards, who helped persuade me to write this book. Feel free to read his book In Stitches. It is like mine but not as good.”
― Benjamin Daniels, Confessions of a GP

“I wasn’t sure where to go from here. From the outside it seemed so straightforward. Leave, run away, start again. Julia had a lot going for her. She could have a whole new life. It clearly isn’t this straightforward as there are thousands of women like Julia who don’t leave or run away or start again. I would never really understand the complexities of Julia’s violent relationship but one thing was very clear. When she said that Andy had nobody else, what she was really saying was that she didn’t have anyone else. She was alone and, however difficult and abusive her relationship was, she clearly felt that it was all she had.”
― Benjamin Daniels, Confessions of a GP

“Secondly, I became a doctor to provide sick people with what they need, rather than offer well people what they want.”
― Benjamin Daniels, Further Confessions of a GP

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― Benjamin Daniels, Confessions of a GP

“The famous French writer Voltaire said that ‘the art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease’.”
― Benjamin Daniels, Further Confessions of a GP

“I am rarely left speechless by a patient’s opening gambit, but as with Elaine, there are always a few that do leave me at a complete loss. My personal favourites are: When I eat a lot of rice cakes, it makes my wee smell of rice cakes; I masturbate 10 to 15 times per day – what should I do? I ate four Easter eggs this morning and now I feel sick; My husband can’t satisfy me sexually; When I was in church this morning, I was overcome by the power of the Lord; I think my vagina is haunted.”
― Benjamin Daniels, Confessions of a GP