The National Elf Service: ...Not the NHS - Softcover

Paul R. Goddard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1854570897 ISBN 13: 9781854570895

Publisher: Clinical Press, 2016

Synopsis

Paul R Goddard, a retired consultant radiologist, has taken a Swift-like move and penned a slim satirical cartoon book. A former President of various medical societies including the Radiology Section of the Royal Society of Medicine, the Bristol Medico Chirurgical Society and the MRRA (UK), Professor Goddard is no stranger to controversy. His witty cartoons will cause much merriment amongst the workers in the National Elf Service, apart, perhaps, from some of the less discerning management and political acolytes (the more discerning will undoubtedly also enjoy the book!). There is an Elf Service in Cloud Cuckoo Land, a place that is sometimes known as Faerie and Elfdom. It is strange how the National Elf Service seems to mirror our own wonderful NHS but is peculiarly different.....in our system the patients are not cranked in on a giant conveyor belt such that a new patient arrives even as the last is leaving the surgery....and there is no huge physical gulf between the managers and the clinical staff as management try to pull the doctors over the cliff edge onto the rocks of despair! (Are you sure? ed.) In Faerie (Cloud Cuckoo Land?) the Right Horrible Jellybean Shunt is in charge...so different from our own world but eerily similar. He seems to think that the junior dwarves (doctors?) can work ten days a week. To find out what happens you will have to either purchase the book or steal one from some unsuspecting NHS worker who has placed his copy within easy reach. This book will make a great present for anyone who works in the health services... perhaps as a birthday or Christmas gift for a real worker or as a retirement present for a higher management acolyte?

About this title

About the Author

Professor Paul R Goddard has written ten textbooks, fourteen novels, an anthology of poetry and around 500 medical papers. During his medical career Paul won prizes for his medical publications including the Couch Award and the Twining Medal of the Royal College of Radiologists and the Barclay Prize from the British Institute of Radiology, 2002/2003. His fiction is intended to be mind expanding and provocative and covers broad subjects of good and evil, philosophy and science as well as fast and exciting action in fantasy and science fiction settings. It is suitable for all ages from 11 onwards. Paul is a Visiting Professor at the University of the West of England, leader of the Bristol band Dr Jazz, and enjoys painting in acrylics. He designs the covers of his own books and recently had three pieces of art on display at an exhibition in New York. He has recorded three number ones in the Amazon download of e-books worldwide rankings and two books that came in second. The number one hits were Reincarnation which reached the top spot in Financial thrillers (Amazon free downloads worldwide) keeping another of his books, The writing on the wall at number two, Oberons Bane (Number 1 Celtic, English and Welsh Myths and Legends) and Parables from Parallel Places (Number 1 Poetry anthologies).

Review

For those who do not know him, the author Prof Goddard is one of those highly irritating people who never give up making annoying observations, but thats only if you're a pompous, overinflated Health service administrator. He is a thorn in the side of the top-heavy bureaucracy that clogs the wheels of our NHS, the confederacy of dunces who, Pere Ubu-like, emit clouds of bullshit and bureau-speak while the front line troops toil and sweat. This is no finely honed erudite scientific paper suitable for the august pages of the Lancet or British Medical Journal. Nor is it a polite, well-reasoned series of debating points about NHS reform under our present leaderships, for the Spectator or Guardian. Rather, it is a volley of furious polemic from a hardened warrior in the battlefield of today's National Health Service, a blast from both barrels of a sawn-off shotgun rather than a deft rapier thrust. Buy this book, if you are an NHS elf or dwarf, like a good belly laugh, or use the NHS and wonder whats going on in it. - Stefan This delightful little book emerged from a lecture given by the author about the loss of the art of clinical medicine. It will take you half an hour to read. The cartoons drawn by the author support a text whose ease of reading belies the wisdom that unerringly puts its finger on exactly what has gone wrong with our beloved National Elf Service (NES), and why. The cartoons at times seem to remind us of a combination of Calman (Mel, not Kenneth) and the Simpsons, but never fail to support the points made about serious issues. This is the kind of book that can be easily passed around amongst kindred spirits, and whose gentle but perceptive touch amuses, but strikes deep chords of recognition of the threats we all know are stalking our National Elf Service. - Dr Paul Main 30th August 2016 This little book of satire is composed of cartoons, written and drawn by Paul Goddard. The author is a retired Radiologist. This is a book for a read on a train or short plane journey and is inexpensive (less than 2 gallons of petrol!). While the book will be of interest to mature consultants, especially those approaching retirement (or even retired) as a reminder of times gone by it should be read by others including younger consultants and trainees. In an easy to read and well-illustrated little book Professor Goddard touches with gentle satire such topics as super-specialisation, over investigation, rising malpractice, clinical freedom, mentorship, rising political and societal expectations, drug interactions, complexity of medicine, the loss of Matron, working time directives and much more. Throughout there are satirical comments on modern NHS management. At first sight it is a book of satire, it is readable and would be valuable for senior and junior doctors and their managers to browse through not all in the past was good but not all was bad either we can learn from the past as the NHS of the future unfolds this little book is a useful, painless way of so doing. - Professor Roy Spence, OBE, MA, MD, LLD (Hon), FRCS, Consultant Surgeon

Edition details

• Publisher: Clinical Press
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1854570897
• ISBN 13: 9781854570895
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 100