Phil Whitaker Salt, 2018, PB, 224pp, £9.99, 978-1784631543
Peter Dorward. Green Tree (Bloomsbury imprint), 2018, HB, 352pp, £15.29, 978-1472943903
Both written by practising GPs, both with deceptively similar subtitles, and both covering many of the same issues, these two books turn out to be very different in style, tone, and intent. Phil Whitaker has been writing his column ‘Health Matters’ for the New Statesman since 2013, and his book is a collection of some 60 of these pieces, ranging widely across diagnostic puzzles, ethical dilemmas, health policy, and the myriad challenges, delights, and frustrations of general practice. He has mastered the constraint of a limited word count, making each piece a model of concision and clarity, usually ending with a lesson learned and shared with the reader — who I assume is imagined to be a typical New Statesman subscriber (whatever that may be). GPs will enjoy it, but will not feel challenged.
By contrast, Peter Dorward’s book, aimed at both the medical and the general reader, plunges deeply into matters philosophical, psychological, and political. It is intensely personal too, from his musings about ‘How to be Good’ as one chapter is headed, through meditations on selfhood and free will, to his analysis of the meaning of pain prompted by his own climbing accident. He explores opiate addiction, somatoform or ‘functional’ disorder, mental illness, terminal care, and other matters, all in their social context and illustrated with harrowing and heart-rending case studies, interleaved with anecdotes from throughout his medical career and personal life.
I imagine that those medical students and young doctors lucky enough to come under the author’s tutelage will learn many important lessons, and provoked into animated argument. In short, it is a marvellous book, and deserves to become a classic of its genre.
- © British Journal of General Practice 2019
