Member Reviews
Insightful and interesting are the two best adjectives I can use to describe this book. The author, a physician, provides an honest account of what it's like living as a doctor with mental health concerns, and the impact on his personal and professional life. He also talks quite a bit about his faith as a member of the LDS. This was a little bit off putting for me, personally, as I felt it took away from his story.
Overall a good read.
It was interesting to read about mental illness within a medical profession. I also felt the book was informative, and I learnt a lot. The author was honest and open about their experiences, even talking about their darkest days. I wasn’t expecting there to be such a large religious elements - although I appreciated that was an enormous part of the authors life. A great read if you want to learn more about mental illness and especially how it can affect a person’s ability to do the job they love.
Depression is a serious medical condition that is associated with symptoms such as melancholy, loss of pleasure, loss of energy, difficulty in concentrating, and suicidal thoughts. Anxiety is a mental health disorder characterized by feelings of worry, anxiety, or fear that are strong enough to interfere with one's daily activities. Depression and anxiety disorders are different, but people with depression often experience symptoms similar to those of an anxiety disorder. But each disorder has its own causes and its own emotional and behavioral symptoms. Nearly 1 in every 5 Americans deal with mental illness in a year.
Fallible: A memoir of a young physicians struggle with mental illness is a eye opener to the fact that Depression and Anxiety can strike anyone including the doctors who are supposed to care for us. This book shows the darker side of the medical industry. This is Kyles story of mental struggle before and during his career as a physician.
Parts of this memoir were troubling to read due to the content. The mentions of abuse, bullying, callous behaviors and misappropriation of resources within the medical field were very hard to read. Unfortunately medical professionals are still just people and all people are fallible.
I struggle with GAD and depression so this book resonated with me on a personal level. This was a well written and thought provoking novel.
I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
A honest and unflinching look at the mental health. Fallible explores a young doctors own thoughts, feelings and experiences with his mental health and his faith.
This was a hard book to tackle, not in terms of style so much as subject matter and the dark reality of this author's life. It tended to swing between many areas in a complex and confusing way at times, but it provides a good insight into the perils of residency and the way that doctors are subjected to extraordinary abuse in their profession. I wish that there had been a bit more regarding the therapy and mental illness aspect of his journey, and I hope that eventually, he finds more solutions that work for him and his lifestyle in handling the menace that is anxiety and depression.
I very much though that the parts of the book discussing the manner in which young doctors in training are bullied and used to the advantage of older physicians, whether it be for drug deals or for anger management, were the most valuable. Holding the balance of people's lives in your hands is already a weighty enough career- to have to face infighting and abuse from those who are supposed to teach you is appalling. I think as well the author's discussion of loss of faith (or, perhaps better said, waning faith) in the Mormon community is valuable too in that it is somewhat of a controversial discussion, but deals with very important matters.
While a little patchworked, and feeling a bit like it could have been dedicated to a memoir of practice rather than a life memoir, it was a solid book with some interesting and very important points. It is personal and doesn't shy away from very hard questions or dark thoughts, and that's a refreshing thing to see placed into a book.
As a nurse myself who struggles with my mental health I found this book extremely relatable and made it a good interesting read for me. I fear those who aren’t involved in medicine might lose interest at some points however.
A sincere thank you to the publisher, author and Netgalley for providing me an ebook copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.
This is not my usual genre, I’m more of a crime/thriller reader however this story intrigued me. I absolutely loved it, truly one of the best books I have read. I am extremely pleased and grateful to both for opening up my mind to something totally different.
Kyle Bradford Jones is a physican in the USA, and this book documents his mental health issues throughout his life, particularly during his medical training.
Suffering from anxiety myself, I saw this as a great opportunity to read and learn from someone else's journey. Bradford Jones offers a wealth of good learning points and ways in which the health care system can and should offer better support. I am not a medical practitioner but a lot was completely relevant to my own experience.
Take note that a lot of Bradford Jones's life is centred around his faith as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints; I wish this had been pointed out in the promotional material as this was an element of the book which I had not looked for and do not engage with.
Unfortunately I couldn’t finish this and gave up 1/2 of the way through, a decision I never take lightly.
As a sufferer of severe anxiety and depression myself, despite not being a Dr, I felt that this book would be relatable to me. Sadly I just found it depressing and a bit self indulgent.
:(
Fallible by Kyle Bradford Jones is a doctor's account of living with mental illness and how it has impacted on his personal and professional life. As a health care professional and family doctor he is in a position that gives him and interesting and original perspective. In the book he very honestly discusses the difficulties he has faced and the darkest moments that he has made his way through, with a particular emphasis on how this has had both positive and negative effects on his practice as a doctor. He also discusses his faith, and I appreciated that while he is a man of faith, he is open to the idea that for some faith may have a detrimental effect on their mental health. I found his story interesting though I was surprised by how negative his experiences with therapists were, and he had seen a few, though he did admit towards the end of the book that the fault may have laid with him. This is a brave book, and one that I think will make more people appreciate the pressures that so many medical professionals face, while also letting those professionals know that it is okay to speak out about their mental health.
I read and reviewed an ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher, all opinions are my own.