34 Patients

Book excerpt: Discover the profound and moving portrait of one doctor's life and work in the NHS 'Wonderful - insightful and compassionate' Dr Richard Shepherd, bestselling author of Unnatural Causes ________ They can't teach you how to be a doctor at medical school . . . As a junior doctor, Dr Tom Templeton learnt how to do his job from books, professors and other doctors and nurses. But the most important lessons - tolerance, kindness, resilience and bravery - he learnt from his patients. Here, he shares the stories of just 34, and how they changed his life while he was helping theirs. From a stillbirth to the old woman who lived a century, from the inhabitants of stately homes to the homeless, these stories whether heartwarming or heartbreaking, funny or tragic, are always inspiring and illuminating. We are all patients, but discover for the first time how the doctors see us . . . ________ 'An admirably told story' Spectator 'Informative and personal, humbling and healing' Observer