The Human Kind by Peter Dorward is about the experience of being a doctor and dealings with patients.

A really good insight to the dilemmas faced by a G.P. These are the kind of stories you couldn't even imagine without a medical background.

The Human Kind
A Doctor's Stories From The Heart Of Medicine
By Peter Dorward
Published by Green Tree/ Bloomsbury, September 2018

Dr Peter Dorward is a GP in Edinburgh, and has a very mixed general practice indeed. He also trains students. From his beginning days as a junior doctor, feeling out of his depth and battling extreme exhaustion in the "bad old days" of medical training to the current way of training and working, he looks at all aspects of medicine in a general practice and the incredible variety of patients, lifestyles and situations which he meets as a result.

He describes some memorable characters who stay with you long after you have closed the book - especially Alicia whose ability to interact with the world is sadly diminished and nobody really knows how much she takes in although her doting mother believes she is actually very able to respond and interact. From youngsters with functional illnesses to drug addicts, angry patients to depressed patients, from the terminally ill to the emergency cases he is called to see, Dr Dorward describes his attitudes and thoughts about prescribing protocols, moral and ethical dilemmas and what he believes are the societal and psychological underpinnings for many illnesses.

This is not always an easy book to read; there are quite lengthy philosophical discourses about the nature of health, illness, society and medicine and parts of the book are really very sad indeed. I did find his commentary about a former student's Christianity very dismissive and patronising, which is a shame as Dr Dorward is otherwise obviously a caring and compassionate man.

I did enjoy the book, but I don't think it will be one I would read again.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read and review a digital copy of this book.

Was caught off guard by how much I liked this memoir and how honest, as well as frank, Dorward seemed. Over his career, Dorward dealt with patients from all walks of life, and their cases are memorable in a variety of different ways. I found some of the accounts involving mental health to be very moving at times.

This was an ARC from Netgalley and Bloomsbury in exchange for an honest review. With thanks.

Fascinating. I think ultimately I was looking for more humour and humanity, but still a really interesting look at what it means to be a doctor and a patient.

Another to add to my medical book collection! This was very different to the others I have already read. This was more a collection of interesting anecdotes interspersed with hits of philosophy and musings about politics and ethics.
It was great, but quite heavy going in parts, as is to be expected from a medical book. Some of the stories were more engaging than others, for example, the addicts who seemed to draw Dr Dorward's affections, the more seriously ill of patients who left your mind ticking over long after the book was finished (particularly the poor, lovely lady with the late cancer diagnosis), and the personal stories of Peter's own accidents or training, which in turn affected his own profession and ways of thinking.
This was quite a lengthy book, but I found that some stories took more of your efforts and concentration than others, whilst some were much easier going and quicker to read. This is well worth a read for anyone who likes a little peek into the medical profession, with the same sense of admiration and awe that I have for these incredible people!

I have read a few of these memoirs written by doctors, this one is very good as it comes from a different angle, discussing how much use medicines are for certain illnesses and how doctors can help us in other ways. This makes the book more of a study in humans than how medicines can cure us.
I enjoyed the fact that the book is set in Scotland and the stories of the doctors patients.

This was an interesting read on a Dr and the various people he treated. From end of life care to mental health and various other patients, it was a fascinating read on how a Dr thinks as well as the patient which we don't always understand so I enjoyed it.

There's been a rash (pardon the pun) of books about the experiences of doctors and nurses in the past few months and I appear to have read most of them. This was by far the most disappointing sadly - I felt that Dorward came across very much as a Dr from the past rather than the new compassionate breed who I have been reading about (and also during my own recent serious health problems treated by). There were some interesting ideas covered but I'd rather have read more about them than Dorward's appointments and attitude.