Taste of own medicine puts doctor on critical list

NEAR DEATH: Dr Awdish argues for compassion

Pick of the best new romantic fiction

by Jojo Moyes Michael Joseph, £20 adventures, resulting in a joyful story with a pitch-perfect ending. by Jill Mansell Headline, £12.99

IN SHOCK: HOW NEARLY DYING MADE ME A BETTER INTENSIVE CARE DOCTOR

by Dr Rana Awdish Bantam Press, £14.99 AS an intensive care doctor, Dr Rana Awdish was used to dealing with the high-pressure medical emergencies that were part and parcel of working in a busy hospital in central Detroit.

However, she had never been a patient.

“Despite being surrounded by every form and severity of disease, I had yet to learn what it meant to be sick,” she says in the introduction to In Shock.

Part memoir, part polemic, this is the story of how 10 years ago, her life was turned on its head after she suffered a catastrophic bleed in her abdomen. Overnight she went from intensive care doctor to intensive care patient with a rare, life-threatening condition.

Awdish was seven months’ pregnant and out for dinner with a friend when she was gripped by a wave of pain.

“I remember thinking I knew nothing of the meaning of pain before that moment… I remember knowing the pain was not compatible with life.”

She was rushed to the hospital where she worked and once doctors saw she was ESSIE writes a tongue-in-cheek Christmas round robin letter as a joke for her friend Scarlett. But then her brother’s friend Lucas presses the “forward to all” button on her email and by the end of the next day she is single, homeless and out of a job.

So elderly Zillah offers Essie a room in her house on Percival Square and she finds a job at the bar across the street. She enjoys her job, her home is lovely and she starts to make new friends. She hopes that life might work out for the best.

But it all takes a turn for the complicated when she is introduced to the owner of the bar: Lucas, the man who forwarded her disastrous email.

Jill Mansell returns with another wonderfully warm story filled with colourful and lovable characters who will lift your spirits.

Essie’s vulnerability makes her an endearing heroine while Zillah has a heart of gold in a tough shell, granting wishes for patients in the local hospice whose touching life stories we pregnant, taken to the labour ward. Awdish was in such agony she could hardly see but as she tried to explain what was happening, medical staff were not listening to her, pushing her to wear a foetal monitoring belt and provide a urine sample.

This was just the beginning of a nightmarish sequence of events. The cause of the bleeding would not be discovered for months; a benign tumour in her liver had ruptured, causing extensive haemorrhaging.

Back in the labour ward, Awdish’s condition deteriorated and as her blood pressure crashed, she was taken to the operating theatre where she was aware of people talking above her. “We’re losing her… she’s circling the drain here.”

She points out that these could have been the last words she ever heard.

Tragically, she lost her baby and remained so seriously ill that she was not expected to survive. She underwent surgery to stop a second benign tumour from rupturing but the procedure caused further complications and she went into septic and anaphylactic learn along the way. This Could Change Everything contains incredibly poignant moments that bring a lump to the throat but are offset with humour and romance.

An uplifting, heartwarming and enjoyable read. by Jenny Colgan Sphere, £7.99 FLORA runs the Summer Seaside Kitchen, a cafe on the Endless Beach of the Scottish island of Mure. The cafe has become the heart of the community but Flora is still struggling to make ends meet. Flora’s friend Lorna, a teacher at the local school, is also struggling but her problems are affairs of the heart: she has fallen for Saif, the island doctor.

Unlike Flora and Lorna who grew up on Mure, Saif arrived as a Syrian refugee, his heart broken because he lost his wife and two small boys on his terrible journey.

While The Endless Beach is a charming feelgood story, Jenny Colgan also tackles important topical issues. Saif’s daily struggle to fit in with the islanders, to deal with his heartbreak and adjust to life in a new country is incredibly well done while Flora’s endless battle with finances and family are refreshingly realistic.

Jenny Colgan has created a community of lovable characters set against a delightful island that is brought brilliantly to life and I hope she writes more stories about this irresistible community. shock. Her slow recovery, with setbacks at every turn, forced her to revaluate both her own approach as a doctor but also the way medics are taught to relate to their patients.

“We aren’t trained to see our patients. We are trained to see pathology,” she says. Awdish was frustrated by what she saw as indifferent treatment by the medical staff around her. She blames the way doctors are trained and recognised a lot of the behaviour in the way she too has treated patients. “We are taught to conceal our emotions and not to indulge the emotions of others,” she says. Awdish recalls a stint on a paediatrics ward as a medical student when she was rebuked by a senior doctor for being moved when a child died. “If you feel close enough to mourn him, then you are irresponsible. How do you expect to care for the other children in your charge?” she was told.

This seems brutal but it is all part of the self-preservation deemed essential if doctors are to do their job without being clouded by sentiment. Awdish argues that this approach is not only damaging for the patient but for the doctor too. “We’re all broken in some way. Broken and haunted,” she remarks bleakly.

The opening chapters of In Shock are both gripping and harrowing and Awdish makes some valid points about the doctor/patient relationship.

Her solution is for doctors to show more empathy, “to see the people beneath the transparent film of disease”.

However, it is hard not to feel frustrated by her irritation with the medical staff who are, after all, battling to save her life.

While she does come up against some doctors who could have shown more compassion, most of the people involved in her treatment seem to be trying their best to help.

What she goes through is horrendous but at times her anger seems misplaced and slightly self-righteous.

But then who knows how any of us would respond when put in that sort of situation?

Awdish’s horrific story has a happy ending as she has made a full recovery and is mother to a seven-year-old son.

But it has been the defining experience of her life and has left her completely sure of one thing, that “medicine cannot heal in a vacuum; it requires connection”. To order any of the books featured, post free (UK only), please phone The Express Bookshop on 01872 562 310. You may also send a cheque made payable to The Express or postal order to: The Express Bookshop, PO BOX 200, Falmouth, Cornwall TR11 4WJ or you can order online at www.expressbookshop.com