The descriptions of both the people and the place are a delight, beautifully illustrated by Richard Baker’s photographs. Although there is loss and grief in this book, it is also a celebration of what general practice can be at its best. Recommended reading for all aspiring doctors, and especially for those working in health policy, so they may understand and preserve the crown jewels of the NHS. Dr Helen Salisbury, Nuffield Department of Primary Care, University of Oxford A Fortunate Woman is a compelling, thoughtful and insightful look at the life and work of a country doctor. Funny, moving and not afraid of the dark, it will speak to readers everywhere.

A Fortunate Woman by Polly Morland, Richard Baker - Waterstones

This is a contemporary look at a rural practitioner, who serves the same Gloucestershire community as the Fortunate Man of Berger's classic, but so much more emotive and visceral. She, as her predecessor (bar one), embeds herself in the community she serves and shows rather than tells the huge benefits for both patient and clinician of this cross-pollination for their health. That’s one of the reasons there are so few takers. When Hodges got his first salaried GP job there were 50 applicants. Today, all the local GPs I speak to insist that you could pretty much walk into any practice in the county and be hired on the spot. Not surprisingly, young doctors often prefer a few days a week as a contracted locum without the pressure of also being responsible – as here – for the management and livelihoods of 140 staff. 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. I was consoled and compelled by this book’s steady gaze on healing and caring. The writing is beautiful' - Sarah Moss, author of Summerwater and Ghost Wall Christina Patterson, Sunday Times The doctor's kindly, holistic approach - she makes time to investigate her patients' social as well as physical needs - seems to evoke a lost world . . . Morland's book contains a profound message for the future at a critical moment for general practice and us all. If all that sounds despairing, Hodges then opens his doors, as he does every working morning, to offer the everyday hope of consultation. Aspen has moved to 15-minute appointments (from the NHS regular 10), because it accepts “that most people will come with a list and it makes sense to look at everything”. I sit quietly in the corner and, with consent, observe that still sacred confessional between GP and patient. Looking on, it is hard not to see almost every case as a brief essay on the state of the nation.Most of us over the age of 30 can remember the family doctor we had when we were kids. They met us as babies and watched us grow up. They knew our stories, those of our siblings, our parents and often our grandparents, too. These stories were fundamental to the bond of trust between doctors and their patients. We are now learning that this deep, accumulated knowledge was also palpably beneficial in medical terms. It was not that she was out of the ordinary’writes Polly Morland near the start of her compelling and beautifully written book A Fortunate Woman, ‘ Put simply, she is a doctor who knows her patients. She is the keeper of their stories, over years and across generations, witness to the infinite variety of their lives. These stories, she says, are what her job is all about. They are what sustain her, even in days as hard as these.’ Listening has become even more crucial. Ten-minute appointments are bad enough. Covid meant doing that behind a mask and face-visor, in scrubs made of old duvet covers. Now there is the telephone consultation. In the before-times, the doctor made a point of accompanying a patient from waiting room to consulting room, because it gave her a chance to assess their mobility and demeanour. Now there is the phone. The doctor has become adept at reading a voice, its hesitancies, emotions, evasions; 16 calls in a morning is the norm.

A Fortunate Woman: A Country Doctor’s Story - The Top Ten

When Polly Morland is clearing out her mother’s house she finds a book that will lead her to a remarkable figure living on her own doorstep: the country doctor who works in the same remote, wooded valley she has lived in for many years. This doctor is a rarity in contemporary medicine – she knows her patients inside out, and their stories are deeply entwined with her own.So, a very big thank you to Polly Morland and to our unnamed colleague, the wonderful subject of ‘A Fortunate Woman’, for inspiring us this year and giving us hope for next. This book was fabulous - its about the doctors commitment to understanding her patients and building long term relationships and how this is the foundation of her practice. It oozes of respect and humility, of humanity and hope. Wendy Moore, TLS This book deepens our understanding of the life and thoughts of a modern doctor, and the modern NHS, and it expands movingly to chronicle a community and a landscape – “the valley” itself is a defining feature of people’s lives.

A Fortunate Woman by Polly Morland | Baillie Gifford Prize A Fortunate Woman by Polly Morland | Baillie Gifford Prize

In A Fortunate Woman, with its beautiful photographs by Richard Baker, Polly Morland has written a profoundly moving love letter to a landscape, a community and, above all, to what it means to be a good doctor.Beautifully written, beguiling, important, overlaid with kindness, quietly woven with a sense of place and a profound insight into how rural communities function. I loved this book. Robert Penn, author of Slow Rise& The Man Who Made Things Out of Trees In the snow-bound January of 1947, a new GP arrived in “the valley”. He had served as a navy surgeon in the war, but now he was a country doctor, there to stay. Eighteen months later, each of his patients received a terse letter: “You are now part of the National Health Service, so you don’t need to pay me any more, thank you very much.” He remained for 35 years. Polly Morland’s A Fortunate Woman, however, is a totally different and in my humble opinion a much better book and inspirational for all the right reasons. At a time of a barrage of negative publicity directed towards GPs, it is a book that reveals the positive impact that a caring GP has on the lives of their patients. The GP in A Fortunate Woman works hard, but she also understands the need for self-care. She has a supportive team behind her, both at work and home, she is reflective, in touch with nature and the landscape (beautifully depicted in the book, both in words and pictures) and through walking, she reaps the therapeutic benefits of exercise and fresh air. Work gives her meaning, but she has balance. A gorgeous gorgeous meditation on primary care, pandemic, and nature ! nothing about this was groundbreaking, but it didn’t need to be — the simplicity was more than enough Do away with the local doctor, her bike and wellies, her familiar car, her listening ear, her “accumulated knowledge” of yourself, your family and circumstances, a doctor you say hello to on the street, who recognises you “as a person, rather than a pathology” – remove her, and our whole heath system collapses too.

A Fortunate Woman: A Country Doctor’s Story - The Top Ten A Fortunate Woman: A Country Doctor’s Story - The Top Ten

A beautifully written book, both moving and humbling. Lissa Evans, author of Crooked Heart and Old BaggageThis biography is as much about person and place as it is about the transformation of family medicine from the human connections of a country doctor to a monolithic public service focused on efficiencies, fiscal accountability, and key performance indicators. It's a story that mirrors a similar transformation of society at large. As a member of the community she serves, the Fortunate Doctor knows her patients as more than just reporting data, but as human beings, and all the complexities and baggage that that involves—as did the doctor who served in this place before her.