Country Doctor is a collection of anecdotes about the life of a former Air Force medic turned country GP - Michael Sparrow. It follows in the footsteps of books like Sick Notes and Confessions of a GP, the primary difference in this case is that the doctor in question has had a rather dubious background for a GP; he is someone who openly admits to being less than academically gifted and admits to neglecting his duties whilst a student/house officer.
The book was enjoyable to read, and there were moments when I literally laughed aloud. The anecdotes in the most part are interesting and entertaining but I found three things hindered my enjoyment of the book. First, the title is misleading. Just a fraction of the book is actually set when the author is a country GP, the vast majority focusing on his early career and time in the Air Force. For me this was immensely disappointing as it was not the collection of interesting stories about interesting people, and good old fashioned village spirit, I had imagined it to be.
The next issue for me was the underlying vibe of the author saying "Look how great I am". Whilst on the surface the author says he wasn't that good a medical student or junior doctor, there is a definite vibe of "I'm better than you" throughout, which quickly got wearing such as when the author basically turns around and said that his tutor could see just how amazing a doctor he was, that they 'helped' him through his exams. Lastly, some of the 'true' stories recounted in the book are questionable. If they did indeed happen, then some of the events where at best unethical.
Overall I found Country Doctor to be a easy, humorous read but for the reasons outlined above I have given it a three star rating, although at only 99p currently, you cannot go too wrong.
Country Doctor is available from Amazon UK
for 99p and from Amazon US
for $1.63.
No comments:
Post a Comment