Doctors on the Edge

by Linden West

This timely book focuses on the work, well-being and lives of doctors during a period of constant change and crisis in the National Health Service in England This book shows how GPs are responding to their changing roles in a changing society; and how such responses may be understood in a context of whole life histories as well as within the norms of medical culture. Doctors, as a profession, have tended, for many reasons, to hide behind a professional curtain in what can be a very 'male' world. Some matters--surrounding the emotional well-being of doctors--are hard for doctors to talk about in this world where, too often, they have been taught to cope, like 'good men should'. The book reveals the emotional problems doctors face and provides space for them to tell their stories of struggles to become more authentic, and reflective as well as 'effective' practitioners. Included are illuminating insights into what is a deeply gendered world in which many women doctors feel torn between caring at work and for their families, and where men can be absent from 'women's work', at home and in the surgery. It is also a culture too where racism still pervades attitudes towards 'minority' doctors and where emotional understandings have tended to be disparaged as 'soft' in the name of a harder science.

340 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2000