Dr Quin Medicine Man by John Quin
£9.99
Paperback
Biteback
22 March 2022
Surgeons cut, but physicians… what do physicians actually do? And is it true that other doctors really call them ‘the magicians’?
John Quin worked for thirty-three years as a physician for the NHS in both Scotland and England, specialising in endocrinology. Days on the wards were uproariously funny one minute, infinitely tragic the next.
Starting with a stern lesson from the president of the British Society of Gastroenterologists that the younger doctor was not ‘a f****** comedian’, Dr Quin, Medicine Man is packed with vividly told tales of the joy and reward of getting the diagnosis right, the disaster of getting it wrong.
Darkly amusing and with a keen eye for the absurd, this sharply observed memoir is not only an acute insight into the farcical frustrations and tensions of working in a chronically underfunded system but also a timely reminder of the humanity of the NHS staff who care for us.