There’s something disarming about a doctor writing about being a patient. When they do it, we call it insight. When we do it, it can be dismissed as complaint, or worse, ingratitude. But for those of us who’ve navigated the maze of modern medicine with our bodies as the map, these memoirs aren't just stories—they’re validation.
I’m not a fiction girl. Give me a raw, unfiltered medical memoir over a novel any day. I've earned the right to that preference, ticking off more specialties than most: oncology, neurology, cardiology, paediatrics, gynaecology, endocrinology, plastics. I’ve met medicine from every angle. When doctors write about being on the receiving end of the scalpel, or the silence in a waiting room, I listen. And I recognise the terrain.
I devoured Professor Stephen Westaby’s books. They’re brutally honest, hilariously arrogant, and so uncomfortably accurate. He lifts the curtain on the theatre of cardiothoracic surgery and shows what we, as patients, know but never say: doctors are human (not gods). Deeply, tragically, triumphantly human—full of doubt, drive, ego, compassion, and sometimes cruelty.
When Westaby talks about heart transplants, he doesn't romanticise the process. He calls it brutal. The assessment for a heart transplant is relentless, emotionally and physically. To call transplantation the gold standard for treating heart failure, he says, is like saying winning the lottery is the best way to make money. It's sobering truth, not sugar-coated optimism.
Henry Marsh echoes similar truths. He describes hospitals as prisons, highlighting the loss of autonomy, identity, and dignity patients endure. I've felt that. You probably have too. Yet, if I wrote it, people might call me bitter—or worse, ungrateful.
It’s fascinating, this double standard. A surgeon can describe himself as a necessary psychopath and be praised for candour. Yet a patient questioning the system is scolded for lacking grace and gratitude. Westaby argues sentimentality has no place in an operating theatre—you can’t save a life if you're too afraid to lose one. That harsh reality makes these memoirs powerful: not just their truth, but the courage their authors have to speak it. And I understand where they are coming from and the rationality for their behaviour: it's self preservation.
Ben Bravery, in The Patient Doctor, offers another perspective. He was first a cancer patient, an experience that inspired him to study medicine in his late twenties, determined to become more compassionate than the doctors he'd encountered. Yet, by the end of his training, he saw clearly how the system nudged young doctors toward detachment. It takes significant emotional effort to hold onto empathy, and surviving the system often means becoming tougher and less affected. Perhaps, to genuinely understand patients, more doctors need time wearing the gown.
I've taken part in registrar exams as a long-study patient, and each time I'm filled with hope. The young doctors I meet are sharp, kind, and exceptional communicators. My hope is that they're given the space and support to nurture their humanity, not lose it to the grind of a broken system.
Charles Dickens once said: "Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts." I often think about that, especially regarding medicine.
Patients, particularly survivors, are expected to smile, be thankful, and share triumphant stories. Yet, survival isn't always neat. Medical decisions come with pros and cons that cast long shadows. They can leave lasting side effects—like menopause at 31 and osteoporosis at 45.
My body has carried the weight of numerous medical miracles, and for that, I am deeply grateful. But I also carry scars, visible and invisible. My life has been shaped by illness and profoundly by the death of my daughter Kenzie to childhood cancer twenty years ago. She endured more than most adults ever will, yet she found joy in the smallest things. That's not sentimental—that's strength.
Yes, I laugh at Stephen Westaby's ego. I nod when Henry Marsh says he hates hospitals and what they do to the soul because I know those feelings intimately. The true story of survival is complex. It doesn't always wrap up neatly.
Maybe that complexity makes us truly grateful—not just for surviving, but for the chance to tell our stories honestly, on our terms.
