Your Life In My Hands: A Junior Doctor's Story

Product Information

The course of my life is in Your power; deliver me from the power of my enemies and from my persecutors. Nearing the end of the book, the reversal of roles is again brought to the fore as Clarke’s father was diagnosed with aggressive cancer, and she faced the anguish of being the loved one of a patient who might slip away at any moment. Yet, even in the midst of despondence, Clarke expresses heartfelt gratitude towards her country’s health service for its collective decision to “provide healthcare without charge to those in need”. Her pride in being an NHS doctor shines through the impending tragedy and general miasma of uncertainty that hangs over its future. While I am personally not inclined to take any sides in such conflicts without a more complete understanding of the situation, I am nevertheless appalled by the Health Secretary’s avoidance of frank conversations with the people whom his policies will most directly affect. The unjust connotations that made the lapse in patient safety seem like the fault of junior doctors were also deeply disturbing. Why does the Almighty not reserve times for judgment? Why may those who know Him never see His days? As Clarke shares some of the traumatic experiences she went through in understaffed hospital shifts, I am moved by her longing to do the best for her patients—a worthy desire which is constantly being thwarted by the long hours and an impossible workload. She describes herself running between wards, frenzied and sleep-deprived, trying to stay sane while not letting her mounting frustration get in the way of treating patients with kindness and respect.

How does it feel to be spat out of medical school into a world of pain, loss and trauma that you feel wholly ill-equipped to handle? To toughen up the hard way, through repeated exposure to life-and-death situations, until you are finally a match for them?From the very heart of the NHS comes this brilliant insight into the continuing crisis in the health service. Rachel Clarke writes as the accomplished journalist she once was and as the leading junior doctor she now is - writing with humanity and compassion that at times reduced me to tears.’ - Jon Snow, Channel 4 News I love how Clarke reminisces the years of her childhood and youth, when her father would bring the entire family to visit his patients at the cottage hospital where he worked. Such an act of compassion filled the wards with a palpable warmth and was especially uplifting for patients who had been forsaken by their families. Her father’s temperament and compassion towards his patients became a guiding beacon for Clarke’s own journey into medicine. I truly admire Clarke’s patient-centred approach to her work and like her, I aspire to be a doctor who can make patients feel loved and understood. This memoir of the first wave of Covid will, I predict, be read a century from now as one of the best eyewitness accounts of what happened in the nation's wards in 2020. But it is no less important that it be read now, as a riveting, heart-wrenching testimony from the front line . . . Clarke writes with grace and empathy about her patients and colleagues . . . A must-read -- Matthew D'Ancona, Tortoise Media These are the extraordinary realities of the NHS front line. From the historic junior doctor strikes to the 'humanitarian crisis' declared by the Red Cross, the overstretched health service is on the precipice.

Thank you to Rebecca Fincham (Bigmouth Presents Book events) and also Metro Publishing (John Blake Books) for the advanced review copy of Your Life in My Hands. And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. Clarke may well be up for another award for this disturbing insider account of the NHS during the pandemic . . . she recognises the power of individual stories -- Vanessa Berridge ― Express Unfortunately, such a system is not always easy to run, and it takes extraordinary wisdom and foresight to properly allocate funding, resources and manpower while still ensuring patient satisfaction. As exemplified by the Mid Staffs hospital scandal, when doctors and nurses are overburdened, it results in unintended callousness and a systemic mistreatment of patients that becomes the norm. At Stafford Hospital, hundreds of patients died unnecessarily from neglect and poor standards of care. While this has been dismissed by some as an isolated case, it is in fact a microcosm of widespread failings in the entire health service.My personal conviction is that the primary goal of any healthcare system should be to serve its people and ensure their health and wellbeing. The vision of the NHS is awe-inspiring, yet, sadly, it has been increasingly besieged by policies that contradict its founding principles. Most Interesting Part of the Book In the Sunday Times best-selling Your Life in My Hands, Rachel depicts life as a junior doctor on the NHS frontline. A heartfelt, deeply personal memoir that is both a powerful polemic on the degradation of Britain's most vital public institution and a love letter of hope and optimism to that same health service. The declining health of our loved ones is a predicament that none of us want to face. Knowing that there will always be a system in place to take care of them is a comforting assurance. Therefore, continuing to uphold the values of the NHS while not subjecting its workers to further stress will provide the crucial anchorage for a better future. Who would I recommend this book to? Throughout the book, Clarke makes striking associations between her own encounters and those at Mid Staffs, beginning with the death of her grandfather, who suffered a fatal fall as he was unable to get help from the hospital staff to use the bathroom. In her own hospital, Clarke also observed such unsettling callousness when a surgeon simply called for a palliative care nurse instead of setting aside time to talk to a patient about his cancer diagnosis. As the abrasive culture of Mid Staffs seeps through the NHS, Clarke notes that this has largely been the result of “the severely depleted numbers of frontline staff”, which aligns with the findings from Sir Robert Francis’ independent inquiry. At the age of 29 Rachel Clarke decided on a change of career, a starting out in journalism in television news she decided the pull of a career in medicine was too great. After all, both her father and grandfather both had careers in medicine. So now it time for Rachel to follow in their footsteps. In Your Life in My Hands Rachel Clarke talks passionately about life as a junior doctor in the NHS.