Doctor on the Brain

Doctor in the House #12

by Richard Gordon

On a sunny morning in June, the dean of St Swithan's Hospital Medical School is struggling to avoid hypocrisy as he writes the obituary for his fearsome sparring partner, Sir Lancelot Spratt.

Yet far from being a funereal and moribund tale, Doctor on the Brain is a fast-moving, hilarious comedy where the jokes are liberally dispensed and the mishaps all too common.

The dean's pregnant daughter, his wife's tantrums, the physician next door and the mysterious willowy blonde secretary all add to the hilarity - seemingly nothing can dampen the medical high jinks of Richard Gordon's host of entertaining characters.

Genres: Fiction

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Richard Gordon is the pen name used by Gordon Ostlere (born Gordon Stanley Ostlere on September 15, 1921), an English surgeon and anaesthetist. As Richard Gordon, Ostlere has written several novels, screenplays for film and television and accounts of popular history, mostly dealing with the practice of medicine. He is most famous for a long series of comic novels on a medical theme starting with Doctor in the House, and the subsequent film, television and stage adaptations. His The Alarming History of Medicine was published in 1993, and he followed this with The Alarming History of Sex.

Gordon worked as anaesthetist at St. Bartholomew's Hospital (where he was a medical student) and later as a ship's surgeon and as assistant editor of the British Medical Journal. He has published several technical books under his own name including Anaesthetics for Medical Students(1949); later published as Ostlere and Bryce-Smith's Anaesthetics for Medical Students in 1989, Anaesthetics and the Patient (1949) and Trichlorethylene Anaesthesia (1953). In 1952, he left medical practice and took up writing full time. He has an uncredited role as an anesthesiologist in the movie Doctor in the House.

The early Doctor novels, set in the fictitious St Swithin's, a teaching hospital in London, were initially witty and apparently autobiographical; later books included more sexual innuendo and farce. The novels were very successful in Britain in Penguin paperback during the 1960s and 1970s. Richard Gordon also contributed to Punch magazine and has published books on medicine, gardening, fishing and cricket.

The film adaptation of Doctor in the House was released in 1954, two years after the book, while Doctor at Sea came out the following year with Brigitte Bardot. Dirk Bogarde starred as Dr. Simon Sparrow in both. The later spin-off TV series were often written by other well-known British comic performers.

Reviews

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book! It was much saucier and sexier than I would have expected from a book about hospital politics but that just added to the fun! The dialogues were laugh-out-loud funny at times and I also loved how everything tied up neatly in the end.

[Linda Fallows · Rating 5 out of 5]

Riotously funny.

[Darshna Rekha · Rating 5 out of 5]

The funniest read this year till date 😂

Loved the mayhem, confusion and the ending - every word, every chapter and every situation - funny, funnier and funniest.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

8/10

[Gerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Confusion, mayhem, bizarre characters, all sorts of strange happenings and misunderstandings all go together to make this the usual recipe for success of one of the 'Doctor' books - all-in-all a jolly good hospital comedy romp!

[Petra X · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read most of the Doctor in the House series years ago and enjoyed every single book.

[Bindy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I know! Needed a quick read from a home shelf and am actually really enjoying the joyous return to my teens when I read the whole series!