Your Life In My Hands: A Junior Doctor's Story Paperback – 30 Nov. 2017

Having read, and been moved by "Dear Life" I was interested to read this written before Rachel Clarke specialised in palliative care. This book gives a good account of life as a junior (even up to 6 years after qualifying) doctor, but probably more importantly, highlights what is wrong in our health service. If Jeremy Hunt, who was Health Minister at the time this book alludes to, has read this book, he must realise that by forcing through the junior doctors contract, he is responsible for so many of our dedicated and brilliant staff, leave. As a retired registered nurse, midwife, health visitor with a diploma in humanistic counselling and a degree in sociology, I know that just 2 years after it was created, the NHS proved to cost more than had been budgeted for. To rectify this ever increasing problem, politicians decided in 1974 that they would organise the way it was run and as a result, the service has run into trouble ever since. Everyone needs to read this book. It highlights that we, the taxpayers, should be paying more tax to keep this brilliant service going, that we need to stop the interference of politicians who change every few years and most are ignorant about health, ill or well, and get rid of expensive business managers. Long may the Rachel Clarkes of this world continue to serve in the NHS.

I love medical memoirs, and this was a very interesting and fascinating read.Just marred slightly for me as I wasn't keen on the political stuff which kept popping up-I do realise that's what was happening at the time, but too many mentions for me, I would have preferred to read mainly about her medical experiences, with just one or two references to the government activity.As well as the anger she has due to the politicians, it's also emotional and warm, plus a few chuckles in there too. Not just about things happening to her patients-closer to home too.This is the second book I've read by this author, and I'll certainly read more.

This Review appeared in The Times, 29.7.2017Life, Death and Jeremy HuntMature students make interesting doctors; confident and committed, with a wealth of life experience to complement their medical skills. Dr Rachel Clarke comes from four generations of doctors, but her first degree was in PPE at Oxford. She worked in political journalism and TV production before medicine, and opens her memoir in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where she risked rape and death to cover the civil war. This didn’t, however, prepare her for the stress, exhaustion and exhilaration of working as a junior doctor in a health service bursting at the seams.Clarke is a skilful writer, and her passion shines through the many personal, moving and unsettling stories of life on the frontline. . One patient with cancer is told with extraordinary tenderness that she is going to die, another makes an astonishing recovery when all seemed futile. And there is a very intimate description of death itself. Clarke’s book also contains a hundred and thirty-three references to health secretary Jeremy Hunt. Hunt’s conflict with junior doctors in 2015-2016 weaves through the spine of this story like a rapidly mutating virus. Clarke details the lengths she and her colleagues went to avoid strike action, and how devastated she felt when the strikes were called. Our longest serving health secretary does not come out well, but neither does the British Medical Association (BMA).Hunt is portrayed as a career politician with a fragile grasp of statistics. Clarke’s experience of political journalism enabled her to repeatedly call him to account on social media for perceived bias, without resorting to trolling. This galvanised widespread support from NHS staff and the public but had little effect on Hunt, who recently confessed to paying no attention to Twitter (although he smiled at a junior doctor placard that read: ‘I’m not a gynaecologist but I know a Hunt when I see one.’) Clarke’s focus on patient safety helped shift the media debate away from Hunt’s line that naïve junior doctors were being hoodwinked by the money-grabbing BMA, to the public realisation that the NHS is dangerously understaffed, and that any attempt to spread more services over weekends, as the Conservative manifesto had promised, would need more staff. Hunt’s suggestion that not enough doctors worked at weekends was met with a vigorous #ImInWorkJeremy campaign on social media, with hundreds of NHS staff posting photos from their weekend shifts. When Hunt assured junior doctors that his door was always open yet refused to meet them, Clarke helped orchestrate a round the clock vigil outside the Department of Health, sitting alongside an empty chair with ‘Hunt’ on it. Sadly, it did not prevent eight days of strike action.I supported Clarke and her colleagues in their attempts to speak truth to power, but I did not support the strikes. 98% of junior doctors who voted did support strikes, which shows a measure of their anger and desperation, but there is scant logic in risking harm to patients in a protest about patient safety. Clarke realised that the conflict could only be resolved through negotiation but Hunt knew that he could just sit tight and effectively impose his new contract on doctors by not offering any alternative. In the event, the BMA self-destructed when private messages exchanged between members of the junior doctors’ committee were leaked to the press. The committee’s chair described a secret strategy to drag the dispute out for 18 months and another member claimed that ‘weekend pay was the only red line for junior doctors.’Clarke was incandescent. Her carefully orchestrated patient safety campaign lay in tatters. A mortally wounded BMA agreed on the wording of a new contract with the government and although 58% of doctors rejected it, there was no alternative. Hunt had won the battle but at what price? As Clarke laments, half of junior doctors who complete their foundation years training are now delaying entering higher specialist training, and some have left the NHS for good. Her view is that this exodus could have been avoided if Jeremy Hunt had not repeatedly threatened to impose a contract on junior doctors.Towards the end of the conflict, Hunt and Clarke finally met in a cramped parliamentary office. Hunt admitted that Britain does not have enough doctors, and told Clarke that his desire to improve patient safety stemmed from the horrors of the Mid Staffs scandal. So how could two people with such similar aims end up poles apart? As Hunt admits; ‘I have totally failed to communicate with junior doctors and I have torn my hair out trying to think how I could have done it differently and better.’ Clarke’s prescription is clear. Stick to the evidence, staff the NHS safely and - above all - work with doctors, not against them. Amidst the politics, this fine book is peppered with the everyday acts of kindness that keep the NHS afloat. But there is also a clear warning. If NHS staff don’t have the time to care, and to do their jobs competently, they will walk away.Dr Phil Hammond is an NHS doctor, Private Eye journalist and author of ‘Staying Alive – How to Get the Best from the NHS’

Unfortunately this book had far too many political whinges in it (justified though they were) to keep my attention throughout and I skipped many many pages of ranting and complaining about Jeremy Hunt etc (justified though I've no doubt it was) until I came to a paragraph where I saw the subject changed to a medical one and held my attention.The book is very well written (the author having a journalistic background) but I just wasn't interested in the politics. However I could understand how the book was a good outlet for the author to vent her anger, and to expose the dreadful and very shabby way health professionals are treated by the government.This is just one of several book written recently by Doctors exposing the awful treatment they get from policitians. It was written pre-COVID, so I wonder if the pandemic might change things? I do hope so.I admired the author's resilience and tenacity, her story of nearly giving up is becoming a familiar one as I work my way through these book written by various Doctors and Nurses.The bits I enjoyed the most were the personal stories of various patients the author helped, and learning about some truly incredible medical conditions (I didn't know it was possible for some people to have all their internal organs on the opposite side of their body for instance!). These stories were well written and with compassion.

I found this book absorbing. It has been written with honesty and integrity and great humour. As a now retired nurse, I witnessed similar incidents Rachel described and I know the anxiety felt by the newly qualified doctors to help their patients and not cause harm.Her honest appraisal of the doctors strike is eye opening and does not reflect well on the government. I read this book following the series "Breathtaking" and now have all of her books.Rachel Clarke is an asset to her profession and I am sure a superb Palliative Care Consultant.

This was fantastic read.I am proud CanadianWho appreciates a health care system whereHow much money you have depends on the care you receive.I did not realize this happened in the U.K. I thought this happened in the USA,Not a commonwealth country. Naivete, you may call it.Again, thank you Rachael Clark, for shining a light on what could occur, if we are not diligent and proactive.

Not an eye-opener as everyone knows what has and is happening in health care, but an insight from the inside itself. As a friend of journalists and wife and mother of doctors, I would recommend this book to all in the hope that things can be improved by an informed public

Too little about the actual patients and too much about the problems of the NHS.

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An amazing person to stand up for the British medical fraternity. This book is recommended whether you reside in the UK or not. An example of someone doing the right thing regardless of risk to their career. Recommend to all to read.