Are you The Fxxking Doctor? by Dr. Liam Farrell (Book Review)

Are you The Fxxking Doctor? by Dr. Liam Farrell

Today I am so happy to be part of the Blog Tour for Are You The Fxxking Doctor? by  Dr Liam Farrell. Thank you to Anne Cater from Random Things Tours and the author for a copy of the book which I have reviewed honestly.

 ‘General practice is the great unknown. We stand on the cusp of the beyond. Science takes us only so far, then the maps stop in the grey areas of intuition, imagination and feelings: here be dragons. Lurching from heart-breaking tragedy to high farce, we are the Renaissance men and women of medicine; our art is intangible. Anything can walk through our door…’

Family doctor, Irishman, musician, award-winning author, anarchist and recovering morphine addict, Liam became a columnist for the BMJ in 1994. He went on to write for many major publications, winning a series of prestigious awards; in 2005, he was the first doctor to win Columnist of the Year in the Periodical Publishers Association awards.

The book contains a selection of Liam’s best work, from his columns, blogs and short stories.Brilliantly funny, glittering with literary allusion and darkly wicked humour, this book is much more than a collection of stand-alone anecdotes and whimsical reflections, rather a compelling chronicle of the daily struggles – and personal costs – of a doctor at the coalface.

Purchase Link

My Review

Are You The Fxxking Doctor? is a collection of articles written by Dr. Liam Farrell, a highly regarded medical author, and retired GP from County Armagh, Northern Ireland.

I started reading the book expecting something very different from what was written in the first chapter.  Instead of laugh out loud anecdotes about the trials and tribulations of being a General Practioner I was actually met with a very dark, graphic and brutally honest depiction of drug addiction. What was most shocking was that the addiction was actually Dr. Farrell’s own!

The rest of the book is about the career of a GP, split into small chapters which are easy to pick up and not particularly in any order. I particularly enjoyed Chapter Fifteen which is entitled Medical Maxims (or known on Twitter as#TipsForNewDocs). I  enjoyed this topic and know I will reread again frequently. This is the type of book you can return to and you will always read something different which completely passed you by previously.

The writing is extremely clever, insightful and full of dry wit. This obviously helped enormously when faced with some rather bizarre situations throughout his career. An example of this was when Dr.Farrell visited a very old, sick friend (and patient) in his final hours. He arrived to find a full-scale wake taking place amongst the Irish neighbours…despite the old gentleman still being alive! You’ll have to read the book yourself to discover the doctor’s priceless reaction!

As an ex NHS administrator myself I understood many of Dr. Farrell’s frustrations. I recognised the patients who expected a doctor to be able to cure anything magically with a prescription for antibiotics and the never-ending complaints about bodily functions. I did find some of the medical terminology difficult to understand but feel that a student nurse or doctor would enjoy the book to its full potential.

Only a person with a massive sense of humour and a huge heart could do this job, and Are You The Fuxxking Doctor? illustrates this to perfection.

 

 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dr Liam Farrell is from Rostrevor, Co Down, Ireland. He was a family doctor in Crossmaglen, Co Armagh, for 20 years, and is an award-winning writer and a seasoned broadcaster. He is married to Brid, and has three children Jack, Katie, and Grace.
He was a columnist for the British Medical Journal for 20 years and currently writes for GP, the leading newspaper for general practitioners in the UK. He has also been a columnist for the Lancet, the Journal of General Practice, the Belfast Telegraph and the Irish News. He wrote the entry on ‘Sex’ for The Oxford Companion to the Body.
On Twitter he curates #Irishmed, a weekly tweetchat on all things medical, which has a global following. He also co-curates #WritersWise, a regular tweetchat for writers, with novelist Sharon Thompson.
He was the medical columnist for the BBC Radio Ulster Evening Extra 1996-98; presented the series Health-Check for Ulster TV in 2002, and was medical consultant for both series of Country Practice in 2000 and 2002 for BBC Northern Ireland.
His awards include Columnist of the Year at Irish Medical Media Awards 2003, Periodical Publishers Association of Great Britain 2006 and Medical Journalist’s Society, London 2011, and Advancing Health through Media at the Zenith Global Healthcare Awards 2018.He was shortlisted for the Michael McLaverty Short Story Competition in 2008.
His twitter handle is @DrLFarrell.

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