Every doctor is haunted by memories of difficult patients. People whom,
despite all of their patience and persistence and the best
communication, diagnostic and reasoning skills, they haven't helped. And
anyone who has been a patient will tell you about encounters with
difficult doctors, of relationships freighted with mutual bafflement,
hostility and pain.
Despite its vast resources, medicine is so often destined to fail
people. Written by a practising GP, this book is told through stories of
Dr Peter Dorward's hardest cases, including his worst failures (and a
few triumphs) and ranging from the everyday to the tragic, grotesque and
humorous. With these stories Peter Dorward explores the philosophical
problems and contradictions entangled in the practice of medicine.