What Is a Doctor?
A GP's Prescription for the Future
Published on 6. July 2023
Book
Hardback
320 pages
978-1-83885-797-4 (ISBN)
Description
A WATERSTONES BEST BOOK OF 2023: POPULAR SCIENCE
What Is a Doctor? is a vital contribution to the ongoing debate about how we maintain an NHS that is both fit for purpose and free. Using stories and case studies from across his thirty-year career as a GP, Dr Phil Whitaker offers insight into the medical movements, political interference and societal changes that have transformed the role of doctor over the past three decades.
Much has altered for the better but, even when based on good intentions, an equal or greater amount has been damaging and threatens the sustainability of the NHS. In examining what it means to be a doctor today, this book also answers an accompanying question 'what is a patient?' - and how we can all take a more active role in our healthcare. And, looking forward, Dr Whitaker describes what might yet be done to restore the NHS and its capacity for properly patient-centred care.
What Is a Doctor? is a vital contribution to the ongoing debate about how we maintain an NHS that is both fit for purpose and free. Using stories and case studies from across his thirty-year career as a GP, Dr Phil Whitaker offers insight into the medical movements, political interference and societal changes that have transformed the role of doctor over the past three decades.
Much has altered for the better but, even when based on good intentions, an equal or greater amount has been damaging and threatens the sustainability of the NHS. In examining what it means to be a doctor today, this book also answers an accompanying question 'what is a patient?' - and how we can all take a more active role in our healthcare. And, looking forward, Dr Whitaker describes what might yet be done to restore the NHS and its capacity for properly patient-centred care.
Reviews / Votes
A powerful account of what has happened to the bedrock of the NHS, the GP system. Whitaker gives us a series of subtle and graphic stories that illustrate the complexity of the doctor-patient relationship and of modern medical practice at the ground level . . . The book is essential - and highly readable -- HENRY MARSH * * New Statesman * * If the NHS is to survive as a model of health-care for another 75 years, it needs thinkers and champions like Dr Whitaker to challenge policy and to ask how the system can reinvent itself. What is a Doctor? is a call to review, renew and revitalise the way we provide medicine, and to ensure that individualised care remains at the heart of the NHS -- KATHRYN MANNIX, author of WITH THE END IN MIND Phil Whitaker knows the business of being a doctor inside out, and his moving and thought-provoking memoir of how the job has changed is essential reading for anyone interested in the future of the NHS -- DAVID NOTT, bestselling author of WAR DOCTOR With meticulous analysis, deep vocational understanding and a palpable compassion for the human stories at the heart of all this, What Is a Doctor? is an essential intervention in the urgent conversation about the future of healthcare in this country -- POLLY MORLAND Fascinating and challenging . . . The book is a page turner and makes a vital contribution to the discussion about the future of doctors and the NHS * * Health Matters * * Calm, knowledgeable, and clear, Phil Whitaker is the GP everyone would like to have, and his prescription for the health service is full of wisdom and kindness. I hope it will be read by everyone concerned about how we care for one another, now and in the future -- GAVIN FRANCIS, author of ADVENTURES IN HUMAN BEING and RECOVERY This remarkable book shares profound insights into many of the problems facing modern medicine and offers a hopeful way forward - resuscitating the humanity that healthcare desperately needs. Simply brilliant -- SIR DAVID HASLAM, past chair of NICE and author of SIDE EFFECTS If just one member of the government could be persuaded to read this book, there might be hope for a reinvigorated NHS and for its beleaguered professionals and its worried patients -- IONA HEATH, President of the Royal College of General Practitioners 2009-2012More details
Edition
Main
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
With dust jacket
Dimensions
Height: 220 mm
Width: 144 mm
Thickness: 31 mm
Weight
433 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-83885-797-4 (9781838857974)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
New editions
Book
07/2024
Canongate Books
€14.00
Shipment within 10-20 days
Person
Dr Phil Whitaker is a practising GP and has been so for over thirty years. He is the author of several books and the winner of the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the Betty Trask Award and the RSL Encore Award. He is the medical editor of the New Statesman. He lives in Wiltshire.
@pwhitakerwriter | philwhitaker.co.uk
@pwhitakerwriter | philwhitaker.co.uk