The result is a kind of perfect storm of stress on the traditional partnership model – a recent Royal College of General Practitioners survey found that 42% of GPs in England were “likely or very likely to leave the profession in the next five years”, with nearly half of those suggesting burnout or stress as the prime reason. Maturity is a variable thing,” Dr Hodges reassures them, “and he’s just spent a lot of his formative years locked down.

A Fortunate Woman | NB Medical A Fortunate Woman | NB Medical

Little did I know it was linked to a previous book A Fortunate Man: The Story of a Country Doctor, and the GP practice in Morland's title is the same one as featured in that book. It’s one of the reasons that it’s hard to retain reception staff, though most here have been in the job for several years. With lovely black and white photos of the rural area and the doctor, this was a very interesting read.

This doctor is a rarity in contemporary medicine – she knows her patients inside out, and their stories are deeply entwined with her own. Stunning in style and content and I hope it encourages all readers to reflect on the book’s key message – the importance of relationship-based care and the fact that it is under threat.

A Fortunate Woman by Polly Morland | Book review | The TLS A Fortunate Woman by Polly Morland | Book review | The TLS

stars - I loved the first half of this book but found the second half less enjoyable due to the focus on the covid pandemic.What is being done in the backrooms of the practice seems to me at first-hand like a model of impressive efficiency forever struggling to keep up. The book chronicles the difficult days we went through practising during the pandemic, including vivid pictures. I laughed out loud at several scenes, and wiped away tears at others; this evoked human drama and life’s ebbs and flow in all its complexity, bound up by a love for the wild surroundings of the valley practice, haunted and inspired by the original book (and GP) on which this is based: “A Fortunate Man.