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  • Life Support

  • Diary of an ICU Doctor on the Frontline of the Covid Crisis
  • By: Dr Jim Down
  • Narrated by: Dr Jim Down
  • Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (59 ratings)
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Life Support

By: Dr Jim Down
Narrated by: Dr Jim Down
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Summary

Brought to you by Penguin. 

'One of the doctors with the most hands-on experience of COVID in the country.' (Edward Docx, New Statesman)

A powerful, moving account of an intensive care doctor's life on the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As a doctor running the intensive care unit at one of London's top hospitals, Jim Down has spent his life working as healthcare's last resort, where the unexpected is always around the corner and life and death decisions are an everyday occurrence.

But nothing had prepared Jim and his team for the events of spring 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic descended. In Life Support, he tells the extraordinary month-by-month story of how as the nation came to a standstill, he and his colleagues donned PPE, received an unprecedented influx of patients, transformed their hospital and ultimately faced down the biggest challenge in the history of the NHS.

The pandemic raised impossible questions for Jim: how do you fight a new disease? How do you go home at night to your wife and young children when you've spent all day around highly infectious patients? How do you tell a mother that her healthy young son has died, only days after falling ill?

With warmth, honesty and humour, this book is a gripping, moving testament to the everyday heroism of the NHS staff in a global crisis and an unforgettable insight into what was really happening in the wards as we clapped on our doorsteps.

©2021 Jim Down (P)2021 Penguin Audio

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Life affirming and heartfelt,

I loved this book - as a nurse it was a lovely reflective, personal and heartwarming account of life in ITU. Lessons to learnt about human nature responses to a crisis. Very moving at times but always upbeat. Thank you Jim Down I have recommended to all my friends.

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A wonderful, thought provoking book

I downloaded this book after hearing Dr Jim Down on Elizabeth Day’s podcast. To hear about a frontline doctor’s experiences of the pandemic and lockdown, with his wry sense of humour and self deprecating quips was not only really interesting but really bought home how amazingly hard it has been for medics. This book was touching, funny, difficult at points and I’ve really enjoyed it.

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Stunning

I have no words that can do justice to this account form an intensive care consultant working in ICU in UCLH during the first wave of the COVID pandemic. I found it stunning. The honesty, candour, professionalism and compassion which streams out of this book simply takes my breath away. If ever you doubted the seriousness of COVID this book will leave you in no doubt as to how awful it truly is.

Thank you seems an inadequate phrase, but I do say thank you to Jim and to all NHS staff across the country for everything you have done and continue to do.

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Brilliant Book

This is a truly marvellous book. Very honest and perceptive in every way, and was so interesting to hear and understand how ICUs operated in a major London hospital during the first lockdown

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how hard everyone worked in the pandemic frightening times

loved it all very well told could not stop listening well done to everyone involved

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Superbly written and narrated

Reading this in 2023 made me realise how much I had already forgotten about the early days of the pandemic. One thing was still present in my mind and that’s the sacrifice and suffering of both families and health staff of covid patients. This is a detailed and compassionate reminder of how it unfolded and the learnings along the way

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A raw insightful superb listen

Thank you to Jim for putting this remarkable first hand experience into words. Full of gripping insights, new staff perspectives and patient stories that bring back many memories of that time with a new light. Huge respect for everything that was done by everyone involved in ITU care during the pandemic.

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Honest

As a nurse having also worked on the front line through the pandemic i draw similarities on how Jim and his colleagues looked Covid in the eye. It’s a really honest review of how it was and in some part still is. You don’t have a to be a medical provider to understand the story he explains the jargon well.

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Honest and sometimes breathtaking

The covid journey we’ve all been on..through incredible different lives. Couldn’t leave it alone and finished it in a day. I shall miss Jim and his outlook

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Interesting but dragged a bit

This book was a very thorough, interesting read about COVID. I liked the honesty and dry humour of the author. My only problem was it dragged a wee bitty at times and I lost the thread . Good though.

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