Just what the doctor ordered - Rated 
This book I first heard about on Radio 4 when it was serialised and had me laughing and teary eyed. I got it and it didn't disappoint. It was funny, addictive, genuine and a real pleasure to read. It highlights the ups and downs and everything in between about being a doctor in the NHS.
Engaging enough, but not ground-breaking - Rated 
Max Pemberton has written an engaging account of his first year as a junior doctor, which I enjoyed reading, but there's something all too familiar about the trials and tribulations he runs through here. Any casual viewer of medical dramas such as "Casualty", "Holby City" , "Cardiac Arrest", "Bodies", "E.R." (etc, etc, etc) will be aware that junior doctors are overworked, underpaid, put under pressure by superiors, and often feel that they are out of their depth. Similarly, the idea that hospitals are being overrun with bureaucracy, paperwork, targets, league tables (etc, etc, etc) is nothing new.
Other familiar medical territory that has the crash team called, the paddles readied and the electric charge applied here includes Max losing heart and beginning to consider other career choices (a dilemma resolved in predictable fashion); family members who complain the young doctor has lost weight and needs to be fed up, etc; nurses being under-appreciated; junior doctors making mistakes (though none that are actually that bad); a senior doctor who is a ladies man and works his way through the younger, impressionable female doctors; X-rays, blood tests, brain scans etc being very difficult to obtain unless special favours can magically be called in by nurses and administration staff who manage to fix things for our hero and earn his eternal gratitude; and an impassioned defence of the NHS. It is all very readable, and I have no doubt that it is all very accurate, but this book is not ground-breaking, and does not take any risks in its depiction of a junior doctor's first year.
Max is a very likeable narrator, and his writing style is gently amusing, if not as hilarious as some of the cover blurb promises the reader. I am greatly reassured that there are doctors out there with his professional, caring and conscientious attitude. However, he's altogether just too nice, and the path of a junior doctor already so well-trodden in books, TV, cinema, newspapers and so on and so forth, for this gentle, familiar account to have any real bite, or lasting impact on the reader.
Enjoyable, but Episodic - Rated
Max Pemberton relates his experiences of the UK's National Health Service, where I also worked for 10 years. Many of his anecdotes brought on a wry smile of recognition.
When I was studying for an MBA I remember learning about corporate culture (now an overused and devalued term) and how it might be described using myths, heroes, legends, stories, jargon, rites and ritual. An NHS manager on my course suggested the consultant's ward round as an example of a ritual. In it the medical consultant and a retinue of junior doctors progress through a ward reviewing and discussing patients. An extreme example can be seen in the film "Doctor in the House" (1954) when the formidable Sir Lancelot Sprat humiliates his underlings.
Max Pemberton seems also to lie at the bottom of the pecking order, because he's packed off to get the coffee and croissants for the round. That seems poor reward for the time he spent excavating X-ray films from behind radiators and tracking down missing pathology samples and results in preparation for the ritual. He even has to transpose manually drugs charts by interpreting the glyphs of senior medical staff. But they say there is little evidence to support the use of Information Technology in healthcare (!)
On the downside it is episodic, which tends to conceal an overall story line, other than the hell of being a junior doctor. Nontheless, I enjoyed it and it, and for those who haven't worked for the supertanker that is the NHS it offers a peek into its engine room.
Brings back memories... - Rated 
This book is scarily accurate. Scary, in that it reminds me of my house officer days, and scary in that it reveals to the layman (and woman) the enormous naivety of the junior doctor on the first few days and weeks at work. However, this is not something to be hidden, and the author is to be commended for his brutal honesty. (For the record, we're not related, and I've never heard of him before, let alone met him!)
I'm not sure if this will appeal more to fellow doctors, who will remember everything Dr Pemberton all-too-well recalls, and laugh and cry at it, or to members of the public, who will see behind the eyes of the terrified junior doctor, facing disease, expectation and impossibility all at once.
I'm not sure what is meant by the contributor who thought House of God more representative of the NHS. For one, House of God is a much older book. Two, it is set in the USA. Three, it is a satire, whereas this, I promise you, is as real as life (and death) gets.
Buy it for your doctor friend, and he or she will thank you. Then borrow it.
Brutally honest - Rated
A few people are commenting saying that this book is not particularly funny, and its not. However, they don't seem to realise that it is not meant to be funny, that instead it lays bare the harsh reality of life in the NHS as a junior doctor. Stressed, tired, unappreciated and doing a lot of unpleasant things for not a lot of money.
As a medical student myself I can say that it is very close to the truth, and I would recommend this book to anyone considering a career in medicine. You will probably reconsider such a rash move, as I would have done if only I'd known!
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