Member Reviews
I enjoyed this account of an inner city GP. I have seen Dr Khan on the GPs Behind Closed Doors t.v. series so it was easy to hear his voice as I read this account and I enjoyed the book very much. I think GPs get a bad press sometimes as appointments are difficult to get and they only have 10 minutes to see you this book explains how stressed doctors are and how most are doing their very best. Dr Khan seems like a lovely man and a very good doctor and I hope he continues to be on tv.
'The Doctor Will See You Now: The highs and lows of my life as an NHS GP' is an account of Dr Amir Khan, a doctor who featured on the popular Channel 5 programme, GP's Behind Doors.
I watched GP Behind Closed Doors and I must admit, Dr Amir Khan was my favourite GP. He looked to have a very calming demeanor and took time to listen to and explain things to his patients, caring about them and their family. This is again reflected in this book as he talks about how he goes above and beyond for his patients. As I read the book I could hear Amir's voice coming out of the page and I devoured the book very quickly. It is a really well written book and I would love to read another book my Dr Amir Khan to hear more tales of his life in the inner city practice,
There are many great patients included in this book, of course names have been changed, but it really shows how varied the life of a GP really is. Some of the characters pop up more than once in the book. As it is a book about a GP, there is of course a wide variety of emotions and I found myself empathising and was close to tears on a number of occasions but then found myself laughing out loud in the following chapter. It does show how varied and unusual the life of a GP really is.
There are great stories about Amir's career in General Practice including his first day as a fully fledged GP and not only did he have to tell an unexpected patient that they were pregnant, but also that she was in labour and the birth was imminent.
The final chapter of the book reflects on the current Coronavirus pandemic and is a heartfelt account of life as a GP during this very difficult time and pays tribute to the NHS and medical profession which I found very poignant.
Thank you to Ebury Publishing for sending me a copy of this book in return for an honest review.
A thoughtful eye opening look at his life as a GP .His training his patients thoughts on medical care.He know is involved treating people with Corona Virus.So interesting So involving.#netgalley#randomhouseuk
There have been a large number of medical memoirs published over the past few years and generally they're all pretty similar. This one was no exception, however it was thoughtful, heartwarming and highlighted the highs and lows of NHS work. Sure to be enjoyed by anyone who enjoyed books such as this is going to hurt or when breath becomes air
I am fascinated by TV documentaries/programmes about Hospitals, medical staff and health. I also enjoy reading books about the same subjects. I really enjoyed watching GPs:Behind Closed Doors.
Dr Amir Khan was one of my favourite GPs from the series, as he seemed like a genuinely nice person, compassionate, funny and caring. The type of person that you want as your GP.
I was delighted to receive an early preview copy of this book from Netgalley and the Publisher.
I could imagine Dr. Amir Khan narrating this book as I was reading it. His personality and character really shone through the narrative and it was an easy and enjoyable read.
I became engrossed the book and read it quickly in a couple of sittings. It was interesting to read about the changes in community healthcare over the last few decades up to the more recent Covid-19 pandemic.
It also reminds the reader that Healthcare staff are also Human, and have struggles and fears too. I really enjoyed reading this book and definitely recommend it.
Dr Amir Khan first became well known when he appeared on Channel 5 GPs Behind Closed Doors TV show. This was a fly on the wall documentary that offered a fascinating insight into the world of GPs. In this book Amir shares anecdotes and stories from his time working in general practice. From his very first day working as a fully quiet qualified GP to present day dealing with the Coronavirus, we see the highs and lows, the happy and sad moments as he meets a whole host of patients.
I saw this book on NetGalley and immediately recognised Amir, but I couldn't place where from. The cover very helpfully stated that he was on the show GPs Behind Closed Doors. I used to really enjoy watching this show as it always used to fascinate me that patients were willing to take part and allow cameras to watch their consultations. I must admit I didn’t read further than the title but just knew I wanted to read this book. It appealed to me because since I read This is Going to Hurt by Adam Kay, I've become slightly obsessed with books that lift the lid on some of the toughest professions around. From doctors’ paramedics midwifes and prison doctors I have been gobbling them all up. I personally feel these books will never become tired or the market become too saturated as every book brings a unique view point perspective and experiences.
You know when going into a book like this you're going to experience a range of emotions. From sharing the joy when patients recover to laughs at the funny situations to feeling anger for the staff who often work in such challenging situations and sadness at the inevitable loss you will read about. This book was no different it took me on a journey where I felt a whole host of emotions. There were a couple of times when death was talked about that I found myself welling up. Amir’s writing style was filled with a warm and humour that made reading the stories, especially the difficult ones a lot easier. It's obvious how much he loves his job and cares for his patience and there are so many stories of him going way beyond expectation to help his patients.
There were a few parts in his book that really struck me that I wanted to mention. Amir tells of growing up having a family doctor who was more like a friend that when he and his mother visited, she and the doctor would often spend time catching up like old friends. He goes on to talk about how this rarely happens anymore. This was so similar to my experiences growing up where despite attending a busy surgery, we also always saw the same family doctor and my Nan would often chat with her like they were old friends. Amir also discusses the pitfalls of having just 10 minutes per patient and it not always being long enough to unpack complex medical situations and things that may be going on. He also mentions how GPs see patients back to back and need to make time outside of clinic to complete notes and referrals. One part that was really horrible to read was he mentioned how GPs just accept abuse from patients is inevitable, a given thing and he shared in his first experience of such abuse. This was just a little bit heart-breaking to read. Despite sharing these stories, it never felt like he was complaining and for every bad part of being a GP he shared a story that was very heart-warming. (I guess I just remember the negative parts a lot more)
The thing that surprised me was that the last few chapters of this book discussed the current pandemic. I didn't think it would be so current and include a discussion of this. I don't want to use the word enjoyable or fascinating when talking about this but it was certainly interesting and eye-opening reading a first-hand account of GPs working through coronavirus. The part that really stuck with me was learning about the events leading up to the lockdown. I think we as members of the general public found it an unnerving time as we lacked much guidance from the government on what we should or shouldn't be doing. What surprised me was that GPs seemed to be in a similar situation. I just assumed from the outset they would have received clear guidelines from when cases started being recorded in the UK, but it seems in the early stages much of it was left to the individual practices to decide what to do. There is also a discussion as to how difficult it was actually putting these guidelines into practice once they were in place. Things like building a rapport became difficult with the physical barrier of wearing a mask and examining patience while trying to avoid them breathing on you. It was just a very eye-opening for someone who knows very little.
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I think you can never read too many of these types of stories and I certainly do not seem to be tying them. I love getting an insight into some of the most challenging professions out there and always finish the stories is with nothing but admiration for those involved. Although I have mentioned some of the more challenging things GPs face that we discussed in this book it was also filled with stories of happy endings for patients and with a lot of moments that I could imagine drive doctors to keep them going. It's obvious throughout how much care and compassion Amir has for his patients his fellow professionals and the NHS and that seems to be a common factor in all of the books I have read that are similar to this.
Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher, Ebury Press for providing me with a copy of this book for review.
If you have enjoyed the television series GPs Behind Closed Doors you will love this and you may have already come across Dr Khan and already know what a lspecial man he is, and you may also recognise who Alison and Marcus really are. If you have never seen the series in which they all appeared it shouldn't make any difference at all as this is a very readable book which will both make you laugh and possibly make you cry,
It may also educate you regarding the role of the GP within the NHS especially with it's truncated services whilst in the midst of Covid19 while enjoying a jolly good read,
This book is another in the trend of doctor’s memoirs of the careers, this one from a GP rather than the perspective of a hospital doctor. If you enjoy medical memoirs, you will probably enjoy this. It’s got some moving and funny anecdotes, plus the mandatory defence of the NHS. It’s an easy read with fairly short chapters. You could read it one or two sittings and Dr Khan is clearly a very likeable guy. The last chapter could use a little more editing- it was clearly turned around quite quickly as it addresses the Covid crisis and there are a few repeated phrases and a slightly haphazard structure here. It’s a decent read but maybe not as moving as When Breath Becomes Air or as funny as This Is Going to Hurt.
Adored this compassionately written medical memoir. Amir Khan is an inner city GP who talks us through some of the interesting cases he’s dealt with, up to and including COVID-19. Khan is honest about the difficulties GPs face, and the pressures they are under. I came away with a new understanding of their role, and thoroughly enjoyed this book.
This book found it's way onto my radar because I really enjoyed watching the series of GPs behind Closed Doors that filmed at the surgery close to where I work.
Dr Khan had me laughing out loud and crying silently as I polished this off in one sitting (only breaking to make food and hang out washing). He gives a clear account of what it is like to work in a GP surgery sparing no emotions or bodily fluids (patients' not his own!) It is clear he is passionate about his work and I was gripped by the stories of his returning patients which often left me in tears!
Spanning his full career from his first day at the surgery to the current crisis, we get a tiny glimpse into life as a GP. I have a renewed admiration for the profession!
When we're feeling unwell or a loved one is in need, seeing your GP can be distressing and difficult.
Reading about the experiences from the other perspective is enlightening and entertaining whilst helping give some perspective to those busy days and long waits for your appointment.
How often do those in the waiting room stop to think where they are and why they're delayed? A perfect read for our current times, GPs are for sure the unsung heroes in any community.
From when i saw Amir Khan on GP Behind Closed doors i thought he was great. - the perfect definition of what a GP should be. When i heard he was releasing a book i was very curious to read it.. I was lucky to get a copy to review from Net Galley.
It was fascinating to read about the ways Dr Khan goes above and beyond for his patients but also the compassion where he thinks about them after the work day is over. the only negative point i have on the book is it wasn't longer - i could of kept reading. So glad that Mama Khan made a few appearances too!
Thank you to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read this book.
This book is by a practicing GP, Dr Khan, and he describes life on the front line. I really enjoyed this book, the style of writing flowed brilliantly, and it took less than a day to read. Some medical memoirs have lots of doctor jargon in, but this one was simple and easy, there was humour, and also some sad stories. Dr Khan also writes about working on the frontline during the Coronavirus pandemic, and it was good to see from the perspective of a doctor, and also to realise they felt as scared and as worried as the public. There’s lots in the book we can all relate to: when you struggle to get an appointment, and then when you do you’re sat for half an hour extra over your time slot, or you have to squeeze all your ailments into a tiny 10 minute slot. It was an eye opener, and made me appreciate my own doctors more, (I say doctors plural because I rarely see the same doctor twice haha).
Loved this book and would highly recommend.
i love watching the gp’s behind closed doors series on tv.dr amir khan is always so professional,approachable and kind.i also follow him on twitter where he comes across as family oriented,nature loving and funny.when i heard he had his first book published about his life as a gp in a busy surgery i was so excited to read it.
the book goes behind the scenes of dr kahn working in a busy practice.we get to learn about patients both young and old from all sorts of backgrounds and their ailments including those who have long term conditions.we get to know the staff at the surgery some of whom have become great friends with dr kahn over the years.it is clear how kind,compassionate and dedicated dr kahn is.
it also becomes quickly apparent about the strains on the modern day gp with their 10 minute slots for each patient and how gp’s have to do far more hours than there allotted ones in order to keep on top of things.
the book explains heartbreaking cases,interesting conditions plus funny incidents that made me wipe my eyes with tears of laughter.oh and a global pandemic thrown in for good measure.
i worked as a nurse years ago so i found this book even more fascinating.it also made me realise more than ever how hard gp’s work and that all good gp’s should be like dr kahn(who is now a professor but very humble about it)
easy to read,fascinating and highly recommended
i loved it!
i was given a copy on netgalley in return for an honest review
I’d like to thank Random House UK/Ebury Press and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read ‘The Doctor Will See You Now’ by Amir Khan in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.
Dr Amir Khan is a GP who’s worked in a large inner-city practice for the past fifteen years and through Amir’s eyes we see the changes that have occurred in general practice. He starts his story from when he’s a newly qualified doctor to him becoming a GP trainer and then to the present time as he watches the Covid-19 pandemic arrive in Europe. Reality hits him when he stops off at a supermarket to buy lunch for the next day and finds all the shelves empty, and his Practice prepares for the reality of video and phone appointments and not meeting his patients face-to-face, all the time living with his fear of himself catching the virus.
Dr Amir Khan gives us a heart-breaking and occasionally hilarious insight into his world, beginning with the gentleman who stops him in a garden centre and pulls down his trousers and underpants so that Amir can examine his groin. This made me laugh out loud as my imagination pictured the doctor’s embarrassment. I also felt sadness when a young couple’s baby dies of sepsis, the little girl Emily who needs a new heart, and his patients who suffer from complications that Amir can’t cure. As Amir says, all GPs want is to do the best they can for their patients and that’s why many of them suffer the stress, long hours and risk to their own health as they care selflessly for others. I have nothing but respect and gratitude for the dedication Amir and his fellow-workers in the NHS all around the country give to their profession. I will never again complain the next time I’m kept waiting for an appointment.
With thanks to Netgalley, Random House Uk and Ebury Publishing. My fascination with the life stories of medics began before Covid, but living with the pandemic has undoubtedly added another dimension to reading this genre. They satisfy my curiosity about the human condition, make me laugh, cry and bristle with frustration at the neglect of such a fantastic institution. With Covid my fascination with the amazing individuals who give so selflessly to the NHS has amplified. This is my first book written from the perspective of a GP and as such the experience feels closer to home. We have all walked into our local surgery with a painful limb, unusual bleed or lump.. and experienced the unique interaction with our GP. Khan writes that ‘there weren’t many jobs that would take in such a wide spectrum of human life on one day ..’ and that is the joy of reading this book. The stories are carefully chosen to reflect this diversity of experience, to impart humour and pathos and to provide a quiet and studied reflection on the current state of GP practice. The book opens with a hysterical encounter at a garden centre which I wanted to read out loud to everyone and finished with stories of life during lockdown. Khan writes of how fundamentally PPE has undermined ‘eye contact, warm smiles and soft questioning’ which lie at the heart of consultation. He portrays the terrible reality of Covid in a care home where ‘patients with dementia rely on stimulation, especially from things that remind them of the past’ but are now lonely and isolated. The story of Emily a little girl with complex heart disease runs through the book. Her health eventually deteriorates and miraculously she receives a transplant operation. Khan reflects that ‘recalling Mr Thornton and countless others like him who died from the coronavirus, and my brave colleagues who lost their lives treating patients with the disease, I think of Emily and her new little heart.’ I think that this is the perspective we take away from the read. Uplifting, funny and sad and a testimony to the amazing institution that is the NHS
My thanks to Netgalley and Random House for a copy of “ The Doctor Will See You Now” for an honest review.
Dr Amir Khan wasn’t someone I was aware of before I read this but I’m a fan of anecdotal books so it sounded really interesting.
I couldn’t put this down, it was both humorous , I loved the hammer incident ! and touching , to the point of bringing me to tears .The book gave a heartbreaking insight to the Covid outbreak and the effects on care homes and the wonderful NHS.
Dr Khan appears to be the GP we should all want to have , professional but with a huge amount of empathy .
I thoroughly recommend this and hope those in higher powers take heed of his words on the future of the NHS., in particular GPS.
The Doctor Will See You Now - Dr Amir Khan ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ (kindly gifted by @eburybooks and @netgally)
As soon as I saw this book on NetGalley I knew I had to request it! I’m a massive fans of medical programmes and I’ve watched GPs Behind Closed Doors before. Add to this that I am a Bradfordian like @doctoramirkhan this book was right up my street.
The book details Dr Khans 15 years as a GP working in inner city practices. Although there are the obvious medical details throughout, it is not written in a textbook style thankfully; as this tends to put me off when things get too technical. There’s also not really any graphic medical details for people who are squeamish....actually there is a pus in mouth incident but let’s gloss over that!!!!!!
The thing that comes across most for me is Dr Khans above and beyond attitude. He obviously was born to be a GP and give his all to his patients. The story of him taking in a patients cat when she refused to go into hospital unless it was cared for was hilarious! There are obviously the touching moments too that bring a lump to your throat. There is a wonderful story of a young girl with heart problems that is updated throughout the whole book and it made me feel so invested in her story that I could only imagine how Dr Khan feels dealing with these stories in person on a daily basis.
I honestly don’t have anything negative to say about this book, in fact I hope there is a follow up with more stories! At a time when we are more appreciative of our NHS than ever, we need to remember our GPs who sometimes get overlooked.
The book is available to buy from 20th August.
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If you have ever been curious about the life of a modern diverse inner city NHS GP in Britain today, then I would recommend you read this stellar memoir from Dr Amir Khan. When I was reading this I did not realise he was already famous, having appeared on TV and has a huge following. This is so well written and so easy to read, he relates experiences and anecdotes from his 15 years as a GP, a profession which is a vocation rather than a job, which is just as well because the nature of his role has changed drastically through the years. When he began it was an attractive profession, this is no longer so, you have to achieve the impossible in the 10 minutes allocated to each patient, where appointments are hard to come by, in a NHS facing unprecedented pressures. There is the fear of complaints, rising levels of paperwork, long hours, tight budget constraints, burnout, an ageing population leading to increasingly complex medical issues and the requirement for changing ways of delivering a service in the era of Covid 19 and lockdown. Now the NHS struggles to recruit GPs, and many are quitting, like Amir's friend, Daniel.
There is no such thing as a normal day for a GP, Amir relates with humour and wit, the medical issues and the lives of his patients, an emotional roller coaster of a ride that touches on both the highs and lows, from having difficult conversations, delivering the worst of news, the death and grief over losing patients he has got to know so well through the years to the relief when, against all the odds, things work out, as when a young girl whose life had comprised of continually being in and out of hospitals, gets a life saving heart transplant in time. Some of what happens makes the mind boggle as when a stranger in a garden centre pulls his trousers down in public, with Amir forced to diagnose his groin rash and the remedy, there are fears when a patient is seen with a hammer, and patients who bring their cats in with them for their appointments, triggering an allergic reaction in a trainee GP. Amongst the pus, blood, and bodily fluids that are the norm, there is domestic violence, alzheimer's dementia, STDs, and so much more in a practice serving a impoverished and deprived local community.
Given the stresses and pressures, its a wonder that Amir has not been ground down, but he manages to still love his job, thanks to the odd lights at the end of the darkest of tunnels, when what he does makes a life changing difference and where there is the occasional miraculous outcome. I was seriously disturbed as I read about the terrifying abuse GPs and NHS have to handle, and the threats and intimidation when Amir refuses to give a unwarranted sick note to a aggressive patient. This is a great memoir, utterly compulsive, it made me laugh and cry, and so informative, and I must admit I wished Dr Khan was my GP! Highly recommended. Many thanks to Random House Ebury for an ARC.
The Doctor Will See You Now by Amir Khan is a thought provoking and insightful book. From his early stages as a GP up until the current Coronavirus this follows through it all.