A review by readsbysophie
Your Life In My Hands - a Junior Doctor's Story by Rachel Clarke

4.0

Rachel Clarke, using skills from her decade as a journalist, charts the 2016 Junior Doctors dispute and her own personal journey into and through medicine. What is wonderful about this book is how well the words flow off the page. She weaves anecdotes from her time in hospitals (her own experiences, her colleagues, and her patients'), her career as a reporter, and the story of Jeremy Hunt vs. the Junior Doctors that unfolded in newspapers, on social media, and in front of the Health Secretary's office. She definitely has a agenda, primarily to combat the political spin about staffing levels and contracts but it also feels as though her main aim was to make us fall in love with the NHS (again). Some of the stories are emotional, some made me feel full of joy and amazement and so appreciative of our health service, others made me fearful that one of my loved ones will end up in hospital in the care of a doctor who, no matter how knowledgable and compassionate, cannot escape the dangers of being physically and mentally overwhelmed by shifts that are too long, too horrific, and "officially" meant to be the job of two doctors not one. Read if you are interested in personal accounts of medicine, read if you love the NHS and want to feel galvanised to protect it, or read if you agree with the government policies and want to be able to understand where the 'other side' are coming from and why they're protesting.