Doctors have a unique view of the human body. Centuries of observing the sick and decades of testing these observations against science. A diagnosis starts with interrogation followed by observation, clinched by the appropriate test.

Clinical skills are focused on patients, but friends and family are not exempt. The real test comes when the physician himself becomes acutely unwell without warning.

This is a story of the continuing importance of clinical signs in the age of artificial intelligence. The story of a doctor who for decades used his diagnostic skills with and without the aid of technology and who suddenly becomes dependent on the healthcare system in which he has spent his whole working life.

The author was a clinician in the National Health Service for over 40 years, specialising in diabetes and endocrinology. He has worked in teaching hospitals around the UK, Japan and New Zealand, as well as a mission hospital in Tanzania and a refugee camp in Zaire. This memoir documents the way clinical skills are acquired and applied in the care of the sick. However, when illness descended out of the blue, he was forced to apply those skills to himself whilst simultaneously adopting the role of the patient.

Customer Reviews

5.0

3 reviews

Milly Leigh

In settings as diverse as rural Tanzania, a Rwandan refugee camp, a remote Scottish hospital, or a modern, well equipped city hospital in the UK, the reader learns how the skills of observing, listening, and examining are the cornerstones of diagnosis and treatment. Dr Scott writes with compassion about his patients and about the detective work of taking into account all the clinical signs and working out the diagnosis. Stories of patients are interspersed with the narrative of the author’s own life-threatening illness, when diagnosis does not come easily and he finds himself racking his brains to understand his own history and clinical signs. It is a book I found hard to put down - informative and thought provoking. I was left with a sense of awe at the resilience and the resourcefulness of people, and ultimately, the human drive to help each other. For those setting out in a career in medicine, this offers wisdom gained over a long and varied career. But equally for any one of any age and background, the insights that it gives into our own bodies and minds is enlightening and memorable. Highly recommended.
Dianne Fortescue

I thought the book might be too medical for a lay person , however the technique used of retrieving old memories of acquiring medical skills and the observing of the doctors treating him when he unexpectedly becomes a patient , makes it readable and gripping . A great read for new doctors , old doctors and non doctors.
John Boileau

This brilliant book is the story of Adrian Scott, his own story, after more than 40 years an NHS consultant and specialist. He has taught and practised medicine around the world but one bleak Sunday night not long after retirement and during Covid, he found himself in his local hospital A&E but not as a doctor.... as a patient. Chapter by chapter, just a few pages at a time, the suspense builds as he waits for hours to find who will treat him, and how they will treat him. and what he will do if his lifetime of experience tell him that his treatment is wrong. The story ends well and is a thought-provoking and occasionally alarming examination of how - sometimes - too much knowledge might indeed be a bad thing. The suspense of Mr Scott's personal medical ordeal is matched chapter by chapter with stories of his work as a medical volunteer in Africa. In the eyes of refugees of war and victims of poverty he saw the fear and deperation that he is now beginning to feel. It is a compelling, well written and true story of a real and remarkable life.