A Fortunate Woman: A Country Doctor’s Story - The Top Ten Bestseller, Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize

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This was “Dr John Sassall”. How capable he was, how eccentric, how dedicated and how unlikely, nowadays, was revealed in John Berger’s classic 1967 book A Fortunate Man. Sassall was a friend and Berger shadowed him for some months, along with the Swiss photographer Jean Mohr. The subtitle of their collaboration is The Story of a Country Doctor. It is not a story as such; it proceeds through a series of vignettes, psychological explorations, case studies and in-depth enquiries into the relationship between one man and his calling, his patients and his environment. This is no rural Call the Midwife, but a superb look at one woman making a difference… 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. The Sunday Times 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.

A Fortunate Woman by Polly Morland review — doing the rounds A Fortunate Woman by Polly Morland review — doing the rounds

I laughed out loud at several scenes, and wiped away tears at others; this evoked human drama and life’s ebbs and flow in all its complexity, bound up by a love for the wild surroundings of the valley practice, haunted and inspired by the original book (and GP) on which this is based: “A Fortunate Man.” It was, even so, very hard to take the decision to give up the practice and the patients to which she has devoted her working life – she plans to work fewer hours as a locum. One factor, she recalls, was reading about the Surrey GP Gail Milligan, who took her own life in July aged 47. Milligan’s husband, Chris, described to the medical press how his wife had become overwhelmed by the 24-hour demands of her job. “Her mind was constantly on work. And she felt guilty for stepping away. She became a shadowy figure in our lives. She was at work for 12 to 14 hours, and when she got home she was working again.” Rutter is the mother of two teenage children. “When I read that,” she says, “It really hit me: I’m working those hours too.” Beautiful and fascinating … it combines the structural elements of storytelling with the skill of real-life reporting, clustering them in the brilliance of a cloisonné-finish. Dundee University Review of the Arts Revisiting Berger’s story after half a century of seismic change, both in our society and in the ways in which medicine is practiced, 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. In the snow-bound January of 1947, a new GP arrived in “the valley”. He had served as a navy surgeon in the war, but now he was a country doctor, there to stay. Eighteen months later, each of his patients received a terse letter: “You are now part of the National Health Service, so you don’t need to pay me any more, thank you very much.” He remained for 35 years.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. Do away with the local doctor, her bike and wellies, her familiar car, her listening ear, her “accumulated knowledge” of yourself, your family and circumstances, a doctor you say hello to on the street, who recognises you “as a person, rather than a pathology” – remove her, and our whole heath system collapses too. Stunning in style and content and I hope it encourages all readers to reflect on the book’s key message – the importance of relationship-based care and the fact that it is under threat. Professor Martin Marshall, Chair, Royal College of General Practitioners 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. 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…a compelling narrative based on patient stories. I loved it. Professor Dame Helen Stokes-Lampard

A Fortunate Woman review: John Berger’s classic upated - New

For me, this story is so much better than John Bergers’s book about a single handed doctor working in the same practice forty years ago. Timely… compelling…[the] vital perspective of a single frontline clinician… A delicately drawn miniature. Financial TimesIn A Fortunate Woman, with its beautiful photographs by Richard Baker, Polly Morland has written a profoundly moving love letter to a landscape, a community and, above all, to what it means to be a good doctor.

A Fortunate Woman - Polly Morland

The descriptions of both the people and the place are a delight, beautifully illustrated by Richard Baker’s photographs. Although there is loss and grief in this book, it is also a celebration of what general practice can be at its best. Recommended reading for all aspiring doctors, and especially for those working in health policy, so they may understand and preserve the crown jewels of the NHS. Dr Helen Salisbury, Nuffield Department of Primary Care, University of OxfordAn immersive study… Morland’s book contains a profound message for the future at a critical moment for general practice and us all. Times Literary Supplement This was exactly my cup of tea. A beautifully written portrait of a rural GP whose tender care for her patients elicits such trust, admiration and even friendship that it seems almost alien in our transactional medical system. Part of this is the breakdown in secondary care. Christmas estimates that at least 20% of her workload is managing patients on interminable waiting lists. And it is a long time since she called an ambulance. “That’s not really functioning, so we usually have to drive patients to hospital.” Once there they are facing 12- and 14-hour waits in A&E. “Quite often at the moment,” she says, “I’ll turn up to work at half seven, and there’ll be a patient in the car park who has given up on the emergency department, and is waiting to bang on my door.” Beautifully written, beguiling, important, overlaid with kindness, quietly woven with a sense of place and a profound insight into how rural communities function. I loved this book. Robert Penn, author of Slow Rise& The Man Who Made Things Out of Trees 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 Fortunate Woman: A Country Doctor’s Story Kindle Edition A Fortunate Woman: A Country Doctor’s Story Kindle Edition

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 At the college’s threescore and 10, outgoing president Martin Marshall offers a sobering assessment of how the profession is bearing up. “There has to come a point,” Marshall says, “where doctors decide, I can’t do my job any more, and then the situation will spiral out of control. I would use the term crisis: so many parts of the NHS are under such enormous pressure that they are unable to provide the personal care that patients need, unable to provide effective care, and increasingly unable to even provide safe care.”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 the mind in equal measure. Alain de Botton