IN STITCHES
The Highs and Lows of Life
as an A&E Doctor
Dr Nick Edwards
William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain in 2007 by Friday Books
Text © Dr Nick Edwards
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
In Stitches is not authorised or endorsed by the NHS and opinions expressed within this book do not reflect those of the NHS. All situations and characters contained within the book are amalgamations of different scenarios at different hospitals and names and timings have been changed to protect anonymity. The author would like it to be known that he is writing under a pseudonym.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9781905548705
Ebook Edition © MAY 2013 ISBN: 9780007332700
Version: 2018-11-15
To Mrs Edwards: everything I do, you make possible and worthwhile. Thank you so much.
Disclaimer: this book is an attempt to take a humorous look at what it is like to work in a British Accident and Emergency Department. Much of it is tongue in cheek, so do not use it as a guide on how to manage illnesses. Call your GP or, if you can’t be bothered to wait for their receptionist to answer the phone, call an ambulance and come on down to your local A&E department for 3 hours and 59 minutes of fun.
Contents
A sign the world has gone mad?
Dealing with threatening patients
MMC – mangling medical careers
This is how it feels like the NHS has been run the last few years
And this is how I would like the NHS to be managed
Where have all the dentists gone?
Should he have called an ambulance?
A different type of health visitor
How targets can hurt patients and staff