Bedside Reading

Send us Fan Mail It's a huge pleasure to welcome the brilliant Becky Platt to Bedside Reading this week. We're talking about Needle by Patrice Lawrence.  Becky is an ACP in paediatric emergency medicine in London. She's also part of the exec for Don't Forget the Bubbles, an amazing open access medical education organisation. https://dontforgetthebubbles.com/ Becky's compas...

Send us Fan Mail A very warm welcome today to retired paediatrician, Dr Harry Stone, who is here today to talk about his memoir, Trust Me, I'm Exhausted, How Not to Train a Doctor . This is a really engaging medical memoir, one framed by an admission as a patient to the hospital that retired Dr Stone worked in. As he lies in a hospital bed, before he lies in a hospital bed, as he lies on a tr...

Send us Fan Mail I'm really delighted today to welcome Scott Weingart to  Bedside Reading. Scott is an emergency critical care physician from New York and  the host of the EMCrit blog and podcast https://emcrit.org/ We are today talking about Nonviolent Communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg. This is such a brilliant accessible book which has really got me thinking a lot about what we need, h...

Send us Fan Mail A very warm welcome today to midwife and educator Suzanne Crozier. We are talking about a book called The Midwife by Tricia Cresswell, which is an absolutely brilliant historical fiction novel, which Suzanne and I both enjoyed enormously for some similar and some different reasons. The Midwife is set in rural Northumberland and in Victorian London. And it's one of those brill...

Send us Fan Mail I'm really pleased today to be welcoming Georgia Vine to Bedside Reading. Georgia is an OT and is the author of Occupational Therapy, Disability Activism and Me, Challenging Ableism in Healthcare , which is a bit of a mouthful of a title for a very slim and absolutely brilliant, brilliant book. Georgia is an OT, she is an educator at the University of Huddersfield and she als...

Send us Fan Mail I'm here today with Laura Spells to talk about a book called The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. And we are thinking about Gen Z in particular and the generation behind that, the younger children. We're thinking about smartphone use. We're thinking about the effect that phones and social media have on developing brains. The move that has happened in the world...

Send us Fan Mail It is a great pleasure today to re-release an episode from back in season 7 to celebrate the paperback edition of to Jane Campbell’s novel “Interpretations of Love” which was published on 5th June  Jane joined me to talk about her first novel, Interpretations of Love.  Regular listeners may know that I've talked about one of Jane's books before, which is a short story co...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to season 10 of Bedside Reading and what a series I've got lined up for you this time around! I am delighted to be launching today with two very special guests, Debbie Hicks and Gemma Jolly from The Reading Agency. The Reading Agency is an absolutely wonderful charity and their Reading Well "Books on Prescription" scheme is absolutely fantastic. If you don&a...

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Send us Fan Mail Nina Donovan's brilliant poem Nasty Woman moves me so much every time I hear it, or read it. It's such a joy to welcome Charley to the podcast here Listen to Nina perform her poem here  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvN0On85sNQ

Send us Fan Mail In this episode, I'm joined by GP Jo Maher as we delve into Jackie Kay’s evocative poem “Three Little Birds” We explore grief, memory, the power of music and the possibility of an earworm from beyond the grave Whether you’re familiar with her work or discovering it for the first time, this episode offers a heartfelt look at one of Jackie Kay’s most moving poems. we mentioned...

Send us Fan Mail It's a real treat to welcome one of my all time medical humanities heroes to the podcast again this week. Sam Guglani is an oncologist, poet and novelist. He is the curator of the incredible Medicine Unboxed, hosting a festival which I've thoroughly enjoyed attending and this wonderful podcast https://soundcloud.com/medicineunboxed Sam was generous enough to give up his...

Send us Fan Mail I'm not sure I can say I have a favourite poet but if I were forced to choose the incredible Hollie McNish would be up there as a hot favourite. Lizz Lidbury and I are talking about one of our favourite of her poems today Arguing in the Headmaster's Office.   As the mother of teenage girls this one spoke to me (and is one of the only literature sources my older teen and...

Send us Fan Mail There is a wonderful recording of James Fenton reading this wonderful poem here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-D3KcWVfQS8 it is well worth listening to. Follow Tom on bluesky here: https://bsky.app/profile/tpoates.bsky.social

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to the third in a short special series of "Bedside Poetry" podcasts. One poem, one guest, one conversation.... I'm delighted to welcome psychiatrist and writer Sabina Dosani to explore "Visit to the Vets" by Ilse Pedler Listen here to Ilse Pedler reading her poem herself: https://youtu.be/p3LTxg1SnP0?si=bMtri4HsTIAGMKcb

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Send us Fan Mail Welcome to the first of a short special series of "Bedside Poetry" podcasts. One poem, one guest, one conversation.... I'm delighted to welcome neonatologist and poet Beth Osmond to explore Angel Nafis' poem "Ode to Dalya's Bald Spot" find the poem here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/149508/ode-to-dalyas-bald-spot

Send us Fan Mail This is the last episode in season eight of the podcast. What a season we've had, finishing off with discussion of Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy. I'm delighted to welcome Laura Shtaingos to the podcast today. Laura wears a number of hats, mostly working within the perinatal mental health space. And it was really, really good to be talking to her about Claire Kilroy&apo...

Send us Fan Mail I'm delighted to welcome Abi Lucking, GP and Medical Educator to Bedside Reading today. We are talking about Dirty Laundry by Richard Pink and Roxanne Emery. You may have come across Rich and Rox. They are the couple ADHD_love_ frequently to be found on Instagram and on Facebook and TikTok.  It was really, really good to find that they had written a great book, which is very...

Send us Fan Mail The Reverend Richard Cole's memoir of grieving for his husband David, The Madness of Grief , is I think one of the most brilliant and moving books on the topic I have ever read. When I started the podcast, I imagined that it wouldn't be long before somebody got in contact and wanted to talk about it. So it's been astonishing that we are almost at the end of season e...

Send us Fan Mail It's a really warm welcome back today to Anna Baverstock, a paediatrician from Taunton in Somerset. We are talking today about A Beginner's Guide to Dying by Simon Boas. Don't let the word dying in the title put you off. This is an absolutely wonderful and incredibly uplifting short book. It was written by Simon Boas in the last few months of his life. It is reflect...

Send us Fan Mail Lucy Easthope's book, When the Dust Settles , is quite possibly one of the most astonishing things I have ever read. Having come back to it for today's podcast, I am struck again by the compassionate wisdom with which Lucy writes and how relevant the themes from disaster recovery are to all of us, particularly those of us working in healthcare. It was such a treat to tal...

Send us Fan Mail Today I am talking to Kas Hawes, a GP in the North of England, about her book, The Heart of the Matter, A Day in the Life of a GP . On the jacket, it is described as "a unique story, the story of a doctor and the many patients she sees every day, a tale of the diversity of life, the uniqueness of individuals and the impact of deprivation on the health of society".  The b...

Send us Fan Mail What a treat recording this episode was.  Such a privilege to meet one of my medical writing heroes,  Dr. Rageshri Dhairyawan to talk about her book, Unheard, The Medical Practice of Silencing . If you haven't read it yet, oh my goodness, I'm actually quite jealous. You're in for a real treat. It's an absolutely wonderful book. I listened to the audiobook and i...

Send us Fan Mail I was so glad to get to talk to GP Amy Fulton about Prophet Song by Paul Lynch.  This is an astonishingly good dystopian fiction novel, which I thoroughly thoroughly enjoyed. It's unusual to find a novel that really has you gripped, sucked into another world imagining something unimaginable and then brought back to earth again and again and again when you realise that this is...