Bedside Reading

Send us Fan Mail A very very special episode this week as Nicola Davis and I explore our best bits from the incredible dotMD festival in Galway which we attended this weekend.  This episode was recorded live at dotMD after a phenomenal 2 days of listening, thinking, reflecting, dancing and eating. Follow Nicola on twitter: https://twitter.com/drnicoladavis The festival website is here http://dotmd...

Send us Fan Mail This week I'm joined by Ralph Emmerson, a GP, GP trainer and self confessed "Shackleton nerd" to talk about Alfred Lansing's 1950s record of the ill fated expedition to the pole led by Shackleton Endurance . It's a story that transcends time and has so much to offer when you reflect on the attributes of leadership that we need in crisis.  When we reflect o...

Send us Fan Mail TRIGGER WARNING : early in the episode we talk about a termination for medical reasons of a much wanted pregnancy and there is discussion of  another bereavement. Susan Mathew and I discuss Mo Gawdat's Solve for Happy  and explore the happiness equation.  Among other things we explore whether the right self help book at the wrong time can be a thing, lessons we have both lear...

Send us Fan Mail Brilliant to be joined again by Naren Senthil Nathan this time to talk about Lucy Kellaway's wonderful story of " how I changed by job, my home, my husband and my hair".  We talk about life stages, expectations, the power of education and the fact that retiring at 60 does not work well with the life expectancy and lifestyles of the 21 century. As a GP trainer I foun...

Send us Fan Mail John Boyne's novel The Heart's Invisible Furies has one of the most powerful opening chapters of anything I've ever read. It has stayed with me and is an extract I've used in teaching a variety of times always with excellent results.  It was a joy to find someone else who'd loved the book too in the form of Bedside Reading's first pharmacist guest, Ke...

Send us Fan Mail What a treat this week to welcome author and retired GP Malcolm Alexander to Beside Reading to talk about his wonderful book Close to where the heart gives out  which is one of my top reads of 2022 so far. We talk about his experiences as a remote and rural GP, the ultimate arch nemesis that was a pair of Wrigley's forceps, the process of writing, doctors as patient, confiden...

Send us Fan Mail I'm delighted to be joined by London GP and podcast fanatic James Thambirajah to discuss Dean Burnett's book Psychological.  James and I explore the importance of being able to explain complex medical concepts in lay language and think about the power of bibliography to help patients and especially relatives to gain an understanding of mental illness. I'm not sure t...

Send us Fan Mail What a treat to be joined by a  member of #medtwitter royalty. Ben Lovell and I had such a great discussion starting from Kristen Johnston's memoir  Guts.  We talk  about whether being nosy is a prerequisite for being a good doctor (yes), how we treat addicts in the NHS (often badly), why as HCPs working in a visibly flawed system we are so conditioned to be defensive of the...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome back and welcome to Season 2. It is o exciting to have you back listening to us. I absolutely loved recording this episode with Emma Pickett IBCLC talking about Room by Emma Donoghue.  We talk about attachment, infant feeding, breastfeeding older children, toddler manners and more. If you want to follow Emma on Twitter find her here: https://twitter.com/makesmilk SOME USEF...

Send us Fan Mail It's the end of series 1 and today's episode is a flipped one where Ed Pooley is interviewing me about Malcolm Gladwell's talking to strangers. This audio recording was originally a videocast as part of Ed's phenomenal Facebook educational group "Difficult Conversations: Understanding Communication & Psychology in Health" which can be found here:...

Send us Fan Mail Join Tara and Kate Smith, A GP in Oxfordshire as we talk about the book that changed  Kate's career:  Stuart a Life Backwards by Alexander Masters If you are interested in Homelessness Kate has kindly drawn up a huge list of resources for further reading/watching Fiction Even the Dogs by Jon Macgregor How to find a home by Mahsuda Snaith Biography Four Feet Under by Tamsen Co...

Send us Fan Mail Tara was excited this week to talk to another Tara who loves books almost as much as she does! Tara McCormack is an Emergency Department Nurse in Sydney and part of the https://dontforgetthebubbles.com community. Follow Tara McC on twitter https://twitter.com/codebluenursey We discovered our shared enjoyment of this book as part of an online book group and there's literally s...

Send us Fan Mail  In honour of world poetry day on 21st March, in a slight change to the format this week I'm delighted to welcome Dr Vicky Thomas (aka @LittleDoctorVic  on Twitter) to talk about some of her poems, published and unpublished. We talk about writing as therapy, about clinical supervision and how it's almost impossible to be a doctor and not be political. Some of Vicky'...

Send us Fan Mail Another pandemic, 104 years before I met Jenny Slough to talk about it but the parallels with 1918 Dublin and 2020/21 London are uncannily familiar.  We talk about Emma Donoghue's brilliant Novel The Pull of the Stars and find shared comfort in remembering that pandemics whilst usually once in a lifetime are events which have happened before and history allows us to start to...

Send us Fan Mail It's International Women's day, in a special episode to mark the occasion catch Tara talking to GP Registrar Eleanor Love about Invisible Women by Caroline Criado-Perez We talk about the gender data gap and the possible impact on health outcomes as well as discrimination (overt and indirect), sexism, feminism and how recognising and acting on gender bias and moving away...

Send us Fan Mail What a treat it was to talk to Ani Gavrilovic about what must be one of the most moving, and thought provoking novels I have ever read.  Maylis de Kerangal's Mend the Living is the story of 24 hours in the heart of 19 year old Simon Limbeau. It is a story of death and life, of organ transplants and human stories, of a day from many different perspectives.  It is a story of lo...

Send us Fan Mail Join Tara this week as she talks to Mahima Chandrasekar about the powerful love story of the NHS and its neonatal care that is Francesca Segal's phenomenal memoir Mothership. We talk about the alien spaceship world of the NICU, how if we are scared as doctors it must be terrifying as a parent. We think about language, how relatives are horribly diminished is we call them &quo...

Send us Fan Mail It's Valentines Day this week and in celebration we have a love story on the podcast today. This isn't a traditional schmaltzy love story though, The Salt Path is a stunning love letter, the record of a long walk and features the sort of love story most of us will never be lucky enough to experience. Tara is joined by Pim Dahan to talk about love, homelessness, the power...

Send us Fan Mail Join Tara George and Trisha Cantley as they talk about Ben Watt's memoir Patient. Yes it is that Ben Watt from "Everything But The Girl".  This is the at times terrifying story of a mystery illness which results in a young man having a near death experience and a prolonged and terrifying hospital stay.  We talk about our experiences of hospitals as doctors rather th...

Send us Fan Mail Join Tara as she talks to Ripon Ahmed about Sunjeev Sahota's phenomenal novel "The Year of the Runaways".   This is a wonderful book and we had such a brilliant discussion about migration, generational changes, aspiration, survival, access to healthcare, attitudes to mental illness, homelessness, families, caste, class and discrimination among many many other things...

Send us Fan Mail This episode Tara is talking to Emma Cunliffe a locum civilian medical practitioner for the MOD and long standing Out of Hours GP about Fredrick Backman's book A Man Called Ove.  They talk about unexpected friendships, grumpy old men, grief and how life experiences  shape us in unimaginable ways. This book does explore suicidal thoughts and attempts and whilst framed in a lig...

Send us Fan Mail This week Tara is talking to Catriona Davis a remote and rural GP on Islay about Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet.  We explore themes around relationships, bereavement, child bereavement in particular, plagues and getting lost in stories.   Some resources you may find helpful Child Bereavement UK Helpline 0800 028 8840 https://www.childbereavementuk.org RCGP Child Bereavement Guidelines...

Send us Fan Mail Tara speaks to Jo Stewart, a GP in Western Australia about James Rhodes’ book Instrumental . We talk about Adverse Childhood Experiences, Attachment, language, safeguarding and the power of holding space.  Find out more about James Rhodes here https://www.jamesrhodes.tv **TRIGGER WARNING** : This is a very dark book in places and in the discussion we talk about the catastrophic ab...

Send us Fan Mail This week Tara is talking to Charlotte Squires, digital media editor for the British Geriatric Society and the organiser of the wonderful #geribookclub on twitter about Richard Osman's debut "The Thursday Murder Club". They discuss the evolution of relationships, putting older people front and centre in a novel, the value of role models and why #bemorejoyce should b...

Send us Fan Mail Tara talks to Nicola Davis about Night Feeds and Morning Songs  a glorious collection of poems about motherhood (collected and curated by Ana Sampson who was Tara's guest on 7th December for the Christmas shopping episode) The talk about the romanticised idyll of motherhood vs the reality, juggling multiple roles, the value of good perinatal care and the fabulous accessibilit...