What is your doctor really thinking? And what does the future hold for the NHS?
We trust our doctors. Polls tell us that we have greater faith in them than in most other professionals (including politicians and journalists, of course). How many of us have experienced a wave of relief in the consulting room, face to face with a calm but caring GP? Doctors Dissected, by the psychotherapist Jane Haynes and GP Martin Scurr should come with a health warning: read this book and you may never feel the same way about your doctor again.
Of course, we know that doctors are human beings like everybody else. But those selected for this book of highly personal interviews appear to be more damaged by life than most of us and sometimes even in need of help. Some have been traumatised by their own upbringing and several talk of their parents not understanding them. But most perturbing of all is the anxiety many of these doctors have about their own medical conditions and the very procedures they would urge on us. “I would be terrified of having an anaesthetic. I’d hate it,” says – yes – an aspiring anaesthetist. Another had to undergo an operation and threw a fit when she realised the anaesthetist was going to be someone who had trained with her not very long ago. The consultant had to step in instead. Is one doctor Haynes talks to a hypochondriac? “Oh, I am too frightened to go to the doctor,” comes the reply, “but I believe in my symptoms 100%.”
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