The Cure for Good Intentions by Sophie Harrison

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The Cure for Good Intentions by Sophie Harrison: The Observations

The Observations

BBC Radio 4 - The Cure for Good Intentions by Sophie Harrison, The Observations

Sophie Harrison’s medical training focuses on a vital doctors’ tool - the Observations.

Having decided on General Practice, Sophie Harrison equips her new doctor’s bag and her new doctor’s mind with the tools she’ll need.

The Cure for Good Intentions is about a life-changing decision. Sophie Harrison left her job as an editor at a prestigious literary magazine, and put herself through medical school and hospital training before eventually becoming a GP.  

From peaceful office days spent writing tactful comments on manuscripts, she entered a world that spoke an entirely different language.  The scenes were familiar from television and books – long corridors, busy wards, stern consultants, anxious patients – but what was her part in it all? Back in the community as a new GP, the question became ever more pressing.

This is a book about how a doctor is made. Sophie asks what a doctor does, and what a doctor is. What signifies a doctor? A bedside manner? A mode of dress? A stethoscope? A firm way with a prescription pad? What is empathy and what does it achieve? How do we deal with pain, our own and other people’s?

After leaving journalism for medicine, Sophie discovers there are a surprising number of skills that can be used in both professions. She offers useful insights into how challenging it can be for doctors to interpret the public.  And her background also gives her a literary appreciation - she refers to medicine in literature and contrasts it with her own experiences.

In Episode 3, having decided on General Practice, Sophie Harrison equips her new doctor’s bag and her new doctor’s mind with the tools she’ll need.  She focuses on a particularly vital doctors’ tool - the Observations.

Read by Tamsin Greig
Abridged by Anna Magnusson 
Produced by Pippa Vaughan
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4

Photo © Onur Pinar

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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Tamsin Greig reads Sophie Harrison's humane account of what it takes to become a doctor.

Book of the Week. At the age of 28, Sophie Harrison decided to leave journalism for medicine. She dryly and humanely charts the process of becoming a doctor. Read by Tamsin Greig.

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