Book info

• Title Confessions of a GP
• Author Benjamin Daniels
• Year 2010
• Genre Memoir

Benjamin Daniels is angry. He is frustrated, confused, baffled and, quite frequently, very funny. He is also a GP. These are his confessions. A woman troubled by pornographic dreams about Tom Jones. An 80-year-old man who can't remember why he's come to see the doctor. A woman with a common cold demanding (but not receiving) antibiotics. A man with a sore knee. A young woman who has been trying to conceive for a while but now finds herself pregnant and isn't sure she wants to go through with it. A 7-year-old boy with 'tummy aches' that don't really exist. These are his patients. Confessions of a GP is a witty insight into the life of a family doctor. Funny and moving in equal measure it will change the way you look at your GP next time you pop in with the sniffles.

Thoughts

I went through a bit of a phase reading these true life occupation-based memoir-style books a while back, and I must have picked this one up at the time. I remember it was very popular in the Amazon Kindle charts for a while but I’ve only just got round to reading it.

It’s quite short, very interesting, and most importantly - not too negative. It’s so easy for these types of books to be depressing, particularly the ones from people in a difficult job. The government troubles and NHS politics can put a big downer on things, but thankfully there are only brief mentions in this book.

The nice thing about Dr Daniels’ thoughts is that they are more about his role in society and less about specific medical memories. There are patients mentioned, but it’s normally as a means to telling a more fascinating story about life from a Doctor’s point of view. Rather than featuring weird and wonderful medical complaints, the book focuses on the people behind them and how society and the medical profession communicate. It’s not always pretty, but it’s mostly gently written, with insight and humour, and a little bit of inspiration to take away.

Rating: 3 / 5