This is a book about mental illness in doctors — written by doctors with personal experience of mental illness. The editor Petre Jones, a practising GP in London, has written a very useful chapter on setting up a practice to enable support and flexible working among partners.
It starts with a foreword by Mike Shooter, President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists:
‘Is it too much to hope that the climate of the NHS itself might change, from one in which demands are made of doctors that they would not dream of making of their patients, to one in which doctors can be patients too, without fear of what it might do to their career?’
Looking towards the media, labels such as ‘"mentally ill" health professional’ and high-profile cases such as that of Beverly Allitt come to mind. The Allitt case led to the Clothier Report, which recommended that people should not be employed if they had been mentally ill in the past 2 years. This has since been amended. However, there is significant discrimination and a …