"I am a junior doctor. It is 4 a.m. I have run arrest calls, treated
life-threatening bleeding, held the hand of a young woman dying of
cancer, scuttled down miles of dim corridors wanting to sob with sheer
exhaustion, forgotten to eat, forgotten to drink, drawn on every fibre
of strength that I possess to keep my patients safe from harm."
How does it feel to be spat out of medical school into a world of pain,
loss and trauma that you feel wholly ill-equipped to handle? To be a
medical novice who makes decisions which - if you get them wrong - might
forever alter, or end, a person's life?In Your Life in My Hands,
television journalist turned junior doctor Rachel Clarke captures the
extraordinary realities of life on the NHS frontline. During last year's
historic junior doctor strikes, Rachel was at the forefront of the
campaign against the government's imposed contract upon young doctors.
Her heartfelt, deeply personal account of life as a junior doctor in
today's NHS is both a powerful polemic on the degradation of Britain's
most vital public institution and a love letter of optimism and hope to
that same health service.
