Author of the week Dr Amir Khan
The genial resident doctor on ITV’S Lorraine talks about family values and how he has coped with trolls
Being in the TV spotlight has not always been easy for Dr Amir Khan, GP and resident doctor for ITV’S Lorraine and Good Morning Britain.
“I’ve been trolled and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t affected by negative comments on Twitter (now X), although I get less of them now,” says Amir, 42, who remains a full-time GP in Bradford, where he grew up.
His latest book, How Families Are Made, aimed at six-to-nine-year-olds, is a truly inclusive exploration of different families.
It looks at heterosexual couples, step-parents, adoptive and foster parents and same-sex couples, as well as giving a gentle introduction to how babies are made, touching on surrogacy and sperm banks, natural births and Caesareans.
Inclusivity is close to the TV GP’S heart. Born in Bradford to Asian immigrants, he’s the son of a bus driver and a social worker. He is proud of his British Pakistani heritage, but has encountered racism throughout his life.
“I’ve had patients refuse to see me because I’m an Asian doctor. I’ve had comments made to me using the ‘P’ word when I’ve been growing up.”
When he publicly stands up for animal rights or voices his views against hunting for pleasure he is attacked on social media.
“I get a barrage of racist abuse about how I don’t understand British culture and values, even though I’m very British. It’s sad, but you learn to live alongside micro-aggressions on a daily basis and macro-aggressions every fortnight at least. When you put stuff out there, it invites it in.”
But social media trolls don’t stop Amir airing his views.
“If I feel passionately about something I will say it as it is. I’ve said very politically motivated things. I didn’t agree with Matt Hancock being in the jungle. I didn’t agree with all the things we did around Covid and I was very vocal about that on TV.
“For the past 13 years the country has been ravaged by this government and the NHS has been completely dismantled. I’ve been in the NHS 20 years and I’ve known the good times, but now it’s bad – bad for patients and bad for the people who work in it.”
As a trainer of GPS, Amir has backed the junior doctors’ strikes.
He says of claims they’ve led to a rise in excess deaths: “People have died because of the doctors’ strike but people were dying because of waiting for services as well and waiting to be seen in hospital when there weren’t strikes. If we want a high-quality health service where you are seen in a timely fashion and patients are looked after well, we’ve got to staff it properly and pay staff properly.
“The doctors didn’t want to strike, patients didn’t die just because they took a day off work. They died because the doctors had no other choice. They’d tried every type of negotiation. I’d put the blame very firmly on the Government.”
Despite his feelings about the state of the NHS, he has no plans to go into private practice, despite frequent offers. “I’m NHS through
‘‘ I was shown stuff in magazines I should not have been looking at
and through and I firmly believe in the idea of healthcare free at the point of need. And where I work, you see why that’s so important.”
He says the diversity of families in his book mirror those he sees in his Bradford clinic, stressing how vital it is to introduce children to facts about the evolution of family life before they’re exposed to misinformation and inappropriate content online.
While it is aimed at children aged six to nine, he says: “It’s a debate lots of adults and parents have – when is it appropriate to have a conversation about where babies come from? Every child and family will be different when it comes to that.”
Amir confesses he learned the facts of life from school friends.
“I grew up with six sisters and my dad died when I was fairly young – and we are a Muslim family. These kinds of conversations didn’t happen in our house.” The information he got from mates was incorrect and inappropriate, he recalls a friend “showing me stuff in magazines I should not have been looking at”.
As a full-time GP – shoehorning TV work in between his NHS commitments and finding time to write a memoir and novel – he has a hugely busy schedule, and says he doesn’t juggle it all very well.
“I don’t see many of my friends any more. I don’t sleep as much as I’d like. I’m still trying to find the balance, but I have a very supportive partner and family and ITV let me do it [the broadcasting] from the surgery when I can’t get down to the studio.”
There’s been a rise in patients wanting an appointment with him at his surgery since his TV debut on Channel 5’s GPS: Behind Closed Doors. But Amir says: “I don’t really consider myself famous. What has changed is I work with people who I used to see on TV, which I still find really mind-blowing.
“I go to London on a Thursday night after being on call at the surgery, film Good Morning Britain and Lorraine and return to Bradford and in clinic again by lunchtime. So there’s not any time to reflect and that probably keeps me grounded.”
He’s also a keen runner and gardener, RSPB president, vice-president of the The Wildlife Trusts and an ambassador for the British Hedgehog Preservation Society and Butterfly Conservation. He’ll be on BBC Springwatch this year too. And he still manages to squeeze in gym sessions four times a week.
Last year, there was a charity tour, charting his journey to becoming a doctor, live on stage. But he has no plans to be another Adam Kay, the former junior doctor turned author, TV writer and comedian, whose bestselling memoir This Is Going To Hurt was adapted for TV.
“It’s too far out of my comfort zone. Adam is brilliantly funny and I am not that naturally funny.”
■■How Families Are Made by Dr Amir Khan is out now