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What Is a Doctor?

A GP's Prescription for the Future

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What Is a Doctor?

By: Dr Phil Whitaker
Narrated by: John Sackville
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A WATERSTONES BEST BOOK OF 2023: POPULAR SCIENCE

What Is a Doctor? is a vital contribution to the ongoing debate about how we maintain an NHS that is both fit for purpose and free. Using stories and case studies from across his thirty-year career as a GP, Dr Phil Whitaker offers insight into the medical movements, political interference and societal changes that have transformed the role of doctor over the past three decades.

Much has altered for the better but, even when based on good intentions, an equal or greater amount has been damaging and threatens the sustainability of the NHS. In examining what it means to be a doctor today, this book also answers an accompanying question ‘what is a patient?’ – and how we can all take a more active role in our healthcare. And, looking forward, Dr Whitaker describes what might yet be done to restore the NHS and its capacity for properly patient-centred care.

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Critic reviews

"A powerful account of what has happened to the bedrock of the NHS, the GP system. Whitaker gives us a series of subtle and graphic stories that illustrate the complexity of the doctor-patient relationship and of modern medical practice at the ground level . . . The book is essential – and highly readable" (HENRY MARSH)
"If the NHS is to survive as a model of health-care for another 75 years, it needs thinkers and champions like Dr Whitaker to challenge policy and to ask how the system can reinvent itself. What is a Doctor? is a call to review, renew and revitalise the way we provide medicine, and to ensure that individualised care remains at the heart of the NHS" (KATHRYN MANNIX, author of WITH THE END IN MIND)
"Phil Whitaker knows the business of being a doctor inside out, and his moving and thought-provoking memoir of how the job has changed is essential reading for anyone interested in the future of the NHS" (DAVID NOTT, bestselling author of WAR DOCTOR)
"With meticulous analysis, deep vocational understanding and a palpable compassion for the human stories at the heart of all this, What Is a Doctor? is an essential intervention in the urgent conversation about the future of healthcare in this country" (POLLY MORLAND)
"Calm, knowledgeable, and clear, Phil Whitaker is the GP everyone would like to have, and his prescription for the health service is full of wisdom and kindness. I hope it will be read by everyone concerned about how we care for one another, now and in the future" (GAVIN FRANCIS, author of ADVENTURES IN HUMAN BEING and RECOVERY)
"This remarkable book shares profound insights into many of the problems facing modern medicine and offers a hopeful way forward – resuscitating the humanity that healthcare desperately needs. Simply brilliant" (SIR DAVID HASLAM, past chair of NICE and author of SIDE EFFECTS)
"If just one member of the government could be persuaded to read this book, there might be hope for a reinvigorated NHS and for its beleaguered professionals and its worried patients" (IONA HEATH, President of the Royal College of General Practitioners 2009-2012)
All stars
Most relevant
*Essential reading for anyone remotely interested in policy or healthcare economics*

Well voiced audio version

Phil. Whitaker wields both the pen and his practice with a rare combination of pragmatism and heart. His ability to narrativise and personify his patient experiences, the changing nature of healthcare and the changes made by successive governments is the perfect antidote to understanding healthcare policy in a fleshed out manner. An antidote to the screeching whirlpool of twitter where a daily deluge of soundbites around the NHS lose the thread of what a healthcare system should achieve.
If you are an economist do not be dissuaded, this is not a fluffy book of human stories cobbled together with idealism. Dr Whitaker manages to sew together human stories with government changes of the healthcare system, how we got here, what should be preserved, promoted and what the practice of doctoring should look like moving forward.
I look forward to hearing more of his ideas in the future.

essential reading

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I loved this book. The stories selected are insightful and moving, and really hammer home his arguments.

An excellent and engaging read.

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Beautifully written compelling and pertinent.

I wish I had a doctor like Dr Phil Whitaker

It’s a crazy situation where the government saves short term money in a way that costs so much in the medium and long term.

He should be health secretary

Important book we should all read

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Excellent book,very well describe the problems of today's health care in many countries across the World. Great guide for the new health care system. Must read for anybody who wants to live longer and healthier life.

Sebastian

Great Book !

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Every patient should read, to have an incite to how the role of the GP has changed over the years, from the family doctor role to a generic doctor within your local practice. Dr Whitaker guides you through the ever changing role of GP, how guidelines from governing bodies (political inferences etc) have altered the way GP treat the patient (which at times may not be the right pathway for that individual) .

Dr Whitaker has written a honest appraisal of what a modern GP has to contend with behind the scenes as well as ensuring the patient is given the right treatment and care.

Behind the scenes

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