How I rated this book: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ = 5/5!
I haven’t done a book review in quite a while so I thought I’d review one of the latest books I’ve just finished. I listened to this book on Listening Books - you can see my post about free listening libraries here.
The book follows the year in the life an inner city GP (General Practitioner) in the UK. The book is in the form of a diary and the author writes about his day to day work and family life. It was quite a humerus book and I enjoyed the funny stories and inner thoughts the author had about their patients. It made me wonder what my GP thinks and makes of me.
For confidentiality the author obviously had to change details about his patients but it was still really interesting and funny, especially some of his regular patients written about or some of the cases that he saw.
As well as the year long diary the author also wrote about their journey into becoming a GP. Deciding to study medicine then medical school. Then the different levels of training and the placements they did once they’d graduated from medical school. Then their decision to become a GP, and their training to become a GP. In all of that are stories of patients and their life. It was quite interesting to hear about all of their training and education and the different specialties they had to experience. I already knew quite a lot but it made me appreciate how throughly experienced UK doctors are and with GP’s the different specialities they have to experience to qualify. So in reality they do have some experience in different specialities despite in their job as a GP dealing with anything and everything.
Another aspect of the book that was interesting was when the author worked as a private GP. It was interesting and sometimes funny the clients he saw when briefly working that particular job. Plus how sometimes money comes before medicine in private healthcare.
The author also writes ongoing in his diary about his home life too with his wife who is pregnant who gave birth to a baby over course of the year in the book. It was funny reading some of the things he wrote about his child, like observations about what babies do and the time they panic bought every type of thermometer there is at the pharmacy. It was also lovely to hear the love the author has for their child and partner in the book too.
At the end of the book the author also gave a really good overview of the COVID pandemic and the effect this had on them as a GP and also wider on the UK’s National Health Service and also on a more global scale. He gave a good tribute to key workers in the UK and those who had to shield because of their vulnerability to COVID and the effects lockdown had on country as a whole. It was interesting to hear how the author had to work as a GP during pandemic and how things changed such as what patients were making appointments for during the pandemic.
As you probably guessed from the rating I gave this book I throughly enjoyed it and would highly recommend it.
I do quite like books that are true life accounts of different people’s life’s and professions from healthcare workers in all settings including one book the was a doctor who worked at an airport, prison staff including prison teachers, showbiz reporters, taxi drivers, police officers and more. It’s a book genre I find quite interesting among other book genres.
‘The Secret Doctor’ was previously titled ‘The Secret GP’ so if you’re looking for it you may need to search for it under this title (it’s titled this on Amazon). It is also available on Audible if you want to listen to it, but do check out Listening Books and see if you’re eligible to join. As well it’s also available to buy on Kindle and as a physical copy.
