A Fortunate Woman: A Country Doctor's Story - Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2022

Description

'Polly Morland and Richard Baker have more than done justice to the original John Berger book - and produced a work that stimulates the eye and mind in equal measure.' Alain de Botton A Fortunate Woman is a compelling, thoughtful and insightful look at the life and work of a country doctor. Funny, moving and not afraid of the dark, it will speak to readers everywhere. Polly Morland was clearing her late mother's house when she found a battered paperback fallen behind the family bookshelf. Opening it, she was astonished to see an old photograph of the remote, wooded valley in which she lives. The book was A Fortunate Man, John Berger's classic account of a country doctor working in the same valley more than half a century earlier. This chance discovery led Morland to the remarkable doctor who serves that valley community today, a woman whose own medical vocation was inspired by reading the very same book as a teenager. A Fortunate Woman tells her compelling, true story, and how the tale of the old doctor has threaded through her own life in magical ways. Working within a community she loves, she is a rarity in contemporary medicine: a modern doctor who knows her patients inside out, the lives of this ancient, wild place entwined with her own. Revisiting Berger's story after half a century of seismic change, both in our society and in the ways in which medicine is practised, A Fortunate Woman sheds light on what it means to be a doctor in today's complex and challenging world. Interweaving the doctor's story with those of her patients, reflecting on the relationship between landscape and community, and upon the wider role of medicine in society, a unique portrait of a twenty-first century family doctor emerges. Illustrated throughout with photographs by Richard Baker. 'All human life is here in this evocative portrayal of the challenges and joys of rural family doctoring in modern times. Enthralling and uplifting.' James LeFanu, author The Rise & Fall of Modern Medicine 'I was consoled and compelled by this book's steady gaze on healing and caring. The writing is beautiful.' Sarah Moss, author of Summerwater and Ghost Wall 'A vibrant and authentic portrait of the rural family doctor in these difficult contemporary times.' Trisha Greenhalgh, Professor of Primary Care at the University of Oxford

Polly Morland is a writer and documentary maker. She worked for fifteen years in television, producing and directing documentaries for the BBC, Channel 4 and Discovery. She is a regular contributor to newspapers and magazines and is the Royal Literary Fund Fellow in the School of Journalism, Media & Culture at Cardiff University. She is the author of several books, including The Society of Timid Souls: Or, How to Be Brave, which was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and was a Sunday Times Book of the Year, and A Fortunate Woman.

Morland writes about nature and the changing landscape with such lyrical precision that her prose sometimes seems close to poetry . . . There has been no shortage in recent years of books about healthcare . . . With this gem, Morland has done something similar for general practice. Let's just hope the policymakers listen. -- Christina Patterson * Sunday Times * The doctor's kindly, hollistic approach - she makes time to investigate her patients' social as well as physical needs - seems to evoke a lost world . . . Morland's book contains a profound message for the future at a critical moment for general practice and us all. -- Wendy Moore * TLS * Polly Morland is a journalist and film-maker with a kindly, dramatic writing style and a feel for the human story . . . This book deepens our understanding of the life and thoughts of a modern doctor, and the modern NHS, and it expands movingly to chronicle a community and a landscape - "the valley" itself is a defining feature of people's lives. -- Kathleen Jamie * New Statesman * 'Here is inbuilt drama, the tug of emotion, self-sacrifice and community, all topped with the glisten of protruding bones and accompanied by howls of anguish.' * The Times * Polly Morland and Richard Baker have more than done justice to the original John Berger book - and produced a work that stimulates the eye and mind in equal measure. -- Alain de Botton I was consoled and compelled by this book's steady gaze on healing and caring. The writing is beautiful. -- Sarah Moss, author of Summerwater and Ghost Wall Superb - beautiful, enthralling, careful, tender, a humanitarian act in itself, deeply moral, moving, lucid and loving. -- Laura Cumming, James Tait Black-winner and bestselling Costa-shortlisted author of The Vanishing Man and On Chapel Sands All human life is here in this evocative portrayal of the challenges and joys of rural family doctoring in modern times. Enthralling and uplifting. -- James LeFanu, author The Rise & Fall of Modern Medicine A Fortunate Woman is the best book I've read about general practice for a long time. Astonishingly perceptive, it shows how a committed GP can keep human values alive in an increasingly impersonal NHS - and why we urgently need more like her. -- Professor Roger Neighbour OBE. Past President, Royal College of General Practitioners
General practice has long been the jewel in the crown of the UK National Health Service; A Fortunate Woman sets out in compelling detail the relationship-based care that will be lost forever if we do not act to support and revitalise a profession under threat. It is a vibrant and authentic portrait of the rural family doctor in these difficult contemporary times. -- Trisha Greenhalgh, Professor of Primary Care at the University of Oxford One of the best books about medicine that I have read. The patients' stories are vivid, moving, often unforgettable. Polly Morland has written with incredible sensitivity, appreciation and descriptive ability about the valley and the people who live there -- Professor Roger Jones OBE This beautifully crafted book drew me in immediately by reminding me of so many reasons why I became a General Practitioner in the first place - relationship based care and truly holistic practice. A Fortunate Woman is grounded in a legacy of care and compassion for the community served, shared though a compelling narrative based on patient stories. I loved it. -- Prof Dame Helen Stokes-Lampard Thanks so much for sharing this pre-publication book with me. I thought it was stunning in style and content and I hope it encourages all readers to reflect on what I agree is your key message - the importance of relationship-base care and the fact that it is under threat. -- Professor Martin Marshall, Chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners Beautifully and tenderly written, [A Fortunate Woman] also serves as a topical reminder of what is possible with continuity of care. -- Caroline Sanderson, 'Editor's Choice' * Bookseller *