Doctors Dissected

by Jane Haynes, Martin Scurr

This is a 'story' book about medicine, body, mind, doctors and caprices of human nature written by an experienced doctor (Martin Scurr), who has seen every untidy vagary of disease, and a psychotherapist (Jane Haynes), who has listened to personal narratives that rival the visceral emotions of King Lear. Doctors - who at their most profound are mercurial messengers between life and death, and who at a more comedic level must suffer our jiggling body parts - are also vulnerable men and women struggling to make sense of their existence. They are the only people other than our lovers to whom as adults we grant voluntary access to our naked bodies. The degree of such intimacy is emphasised by the concern of all medical ethics which promises that we will not be taken advantage of should we fall ill and become infantilised.

Genres: Nonfiction

392 pages, Hardcover

First published January 29, 2015

Reviews

[Ed · Rating 5 out of 5]

--- second read ---

When I first read this I was due to start the second year of my own medical training. Now a few years after graduation I can think vaguely of what I felt the first time around, while also seeing that I understand things in the text differently to before, and that I have changed as a person.

I still consider this a well written and thoughtful set of interviews, and in fact perhaps the biggest change is stronger opinions. I think I feel more of what is written and I like the good bits more, and dislike the bad bits more as well. I don't think I could open myself up like this so totally to strangers at this time, yet that is exactly what one of the doctors interviewed is doing. This is almost more intimate than autobiography, as the topics discussed and themes are probed out of each candidate by the interviewer trained in psychoanalysis and edited to this abridged and intense set of stories.

This time around I was more touched and impressed by the devotion involved, especially in the characters from other cultures and from earlier days. As a profession medicine is now lacking this - if it was retained in shreds it has faded further even in the time I have been working. The UK government have trained us to see this as a job role, not a vocation - despite the warnings present for years. Whether the public could ever appreciate what they have lost in that transition is not clear to me.

There is an interesting discussion of class in this book, but more as a subtext than as something more open: the authors are rather privileged, and entitled enough that they do not address it (and I do not know if they see it). However despite the differences of sex, race, age, nationality, speciality and their own health crises these people interviewed have strong commonalities which are well summarised in an epilogue which was more insightful than I expected.

Perhaps I'll read it again in ten years' time.

--- first read ---

This book is a set of deeply personal interviews of a variety of incredibly hardworking, eminent and passionate doctors. It is image-shattering, it could be disillusioning, it certainly paints a different image of the doctor to the paragon of virtues held up by western society!

Fantastically deep in the disclosure of those interviewed and I would recommend this to anyone interested in the reality of the life of many doctors working today - both sides of the NHS/private divide. Themes such as continuity of care, death, stresses... it is so fascinating to read the views of those with decades of experience behind them.