Doctor's Notes, A

Reading the personal challenges faced by this dedicated cardiologist, and his personal escapades as a committed family man, Tom Godwin's memoir will alternately make you laugh out loud, break your heart, and invite lively debate about his outspoken opinions on modern medical issues.

The author takes the reader through a totally frank and sometimes tumultuous career in medicine starting in his last year in high school to his forced retirement due to ill health more than forty years later. His career in retirement in the last twelve years, not far from medicine, has also been very interesting and described with insight and humour. In this book many very controversial topics have been raised as seen through the eyes of a busy doctor trying to do the best for his patients. Factual true life experiences describing the good and bad outcomes without hesitation. Vignettes of his patients have been weaved throughout the book, some to illustrate the general problems that are raised by their various illnesses. Some of the patients' histories have been changed slightly to avoid embarrassment but the names of his colleagues in medicine and their histories have not been adulterated in the slightest detail. The book is intended to both educate and entertain the audience and make the lay public more aware of the huge problems facing the profession today. His personal stories of his farm, his family and friends are sometimes both hilarious and heart warming but there are also some very serious moments. Some of the pit falls of being a doctor are described as well as some of their fool hardy adventures and hobbies. He also provides a short course in veterinarian medicine. The book is arranged in topics, each chapter being different from the preceding one and hopefully these chapters will provoke lively discussion.