Life In Her Hands

'I am a junior doctor. It is 4 a.m. I have run arrest calls, treated life-threatening bleeding, held the hand of a young woman dying of cancer, scuttled down miles of dim corridors wanting to sob with sheer exhaustion, forgotten to eat, forgotten to drink, drawn on every fibre of strength that I possess to keep my patients safe from harm.' How does it feel to be spat out of medical school into a world of pain, loss and trauma that you feel wholly ill-equipped to handle? To be a medical novice who makes decisions which - if you get them wrong - might forever alter, or end, a person's life? To toughen up the hard way, through repeated exposure to life-and-death situations, until you are finally a match for them? In this heartfelt, deeply personal account of life as a junior doctor in today's health service, former television journalist turned doctor, Rachel Clarke, captures the extraordinary realities of ordinary life on the NHS front line. From the historic junior doctor strikes of 2016 to the 'humanitarian crisis' declared by the Red Cross, the overstretched health service is on the precipice, calling for junior doctors to draw on extraordinary reserves of what compelled them into medicine in the first place - and the value the NHS can least afford to lose - kindness. Your Life in My Hands is at once a powerful polemic on the systematic degradation of Britain's most vital public institution, and a love letter of optimism and hope to that same health service and those who support it. This extraordinary memoir offers a glimpse into a life spent between the operating room and the bedside, the mortuary and the doctors' mess, telling powerful truths about today's NHS frontline, and capturing with tenderness and humanity the highs and lows of a new doctor's first steps onto the wards in the context of a health service at breaking point - and what it means to be entrusted with carrying another's life in your hands. 'Eloquent and moving' - Henry Marsh 'There have been many books written by young doctors... but none comes close to Clarke's' - Sunday Times 'From the very heart of the NHS comes this brilliant insight into the continuing crisis in the health service. Rachel Clarke writes as the accomplished journalist she once was and as the leading junior doctor she now is - writing with humanity and compassion that at times reduced me to tears.' - Jon Snow, Channel 4 News 'Dr Clarke has written a blockbuster, a page-turner, a tear-jerker. This is a "from-the-heart" front-line account of the human cost of the wanton erosion of a magnificent ideal - healthcare free at the point of need, funded through public taxation, available to all - made real in the UK for near 70 years. It is a love-song for the wonderful National Health Service that has embodied - to an extent equalled nowhere in the world - the principle that healthcare is not a commodity but a great duty of state.' - Prof. Neena Modi, President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health 'A powerful account of life on the NHS frontline. If only Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt could see the passion behind the people in the NHS, they might stop treating them as the enemy, and understand that without them we don't have an NHS worth the name.' - Alastair Campbell

One out of nine women in the United States will develop breast cancer in her lifetime. In fact, it is the second leading cause of cancer death for women (after lung cancer) and the leading overall cause of death in women between the ages of forty and fifty-five. For too long women have erroneously believed that there is little or nothing they can do to prevent this dread illness. Our major medical efforts are directed toward detecting and treating, rather than preventing, breast cancer. Professor Jane Plant, one of Britain's most eminent scientists, contracted breast cancer in 1987. She had five recurrences, and, by 1993, the cancer had spread to her lymph system. When orthodox medicine gave up and she was told that she only had three months to live, she determined to use her extensive scientific training and her knowledge of other cultures to find a way to survive. In her research, she was startled to find that in China breast cancer affects far fewer women than in Western countries. Plant considered that there could be a dietary trigger for the illness. As she continued her scientific investigations, she became convinced that there was a causal link between consumption of dairy products and breast cancer. Jane Plant finally defeated her breast cancer, in part because she used her training and knowledge as a natural scientist to understand it-- and then overcome it. Combining the diet her research had led to with traditional medical treatment, Professor Plant was not only able to triumph over her own disease but also to pass on what she had discovered to help more than sixty other women successfully fight their breast cancer. In this book, women will be presented for the first time with a compelling body of evidence strongly suggesting that consumption of dairy products may cause breast cancer. It will demonstrate the specific changes that women can make in their day-to-day lives to help prevent and treat breast cancer. With a clear statement of the scientific principles behind her discovery, Professor Plant includes detailed suggestions for ways to alter your diet by eliminating or reducing consumption of many suspected cancer-causing agents, especially dairy products, and replacing them with healthful alternatives. She offers as well detailed menus and recipes to help you make the transition and enjoy it. Your Life in Your Hands is a revolutionary book that will change the lives of millions of women.

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2020 by: The Washington Post, Vogue, Marie Claire, Entertainment Weekly, The Millions, New York Magazine, Paste Magazine, LitHub, E! News Online, and many more From one of our most ceaselessly provocative literary talents, a novel of haunting metaphysical suspense about an elderly widow whose life is upturned when she finds an ominous note on a walk in the woods. While on her daily walk with her dog in a secluded woods, a woman comes across a note, handwritten and carefully pinned to the ground by stones. "Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn't me. Here is her dead body." But there is no dead body. Our narrator is deeply shaken; she has no idea what to make of this. She is new to this area, alone after the death of her husband, and she knows no one. Becoming obsessed with solving this mystery, our narrator imagines who Magda was and how she met her fate. With very little to go on, she invents a list of murder suspects and possible motives for the crime. Oddly, her suppositions begin to find correspondences in the real world, and with mounting excitement and dread, the fog of mystery starts to fade into menacing certainty. As her investigation widens, strange dissonances accrue, perhaps associated with the darkness in her own past; we must face the prospect that there is either an innocent explanation for all this or a much more sinister one. A triumphant blend of horror, suspense, and pitch-black comedy, Death in Her Hands asks us to consider how the stories we tell ourselves both reflect the truth and keep us blind to it. Once again, we are in the hands of a narrator whose unreliability is well earned, and the stakes have never been higher.

'A great read. I am honoured to have worked with such a legend' David Nott 'A role model for women' Independent 'A wonderful read' Julian Fellowes 'Remarkable' Lauren Laverne 'Charming' Guardian We were occasionally expected to travel by ambulance to a serious case and would always have a kit of tools and drugs ready for emergency calls. On one occasion, we were responding to a man who had fallen into the hold of a grain ship and broken his leg. I was expected to go down a pole into the ship to administer analgaesia before he could be rescued. The 'audience' of shipworkers delighted in telling me that there were rats the size of dogs down in the grain. The other problem was that this was the era of the mini skirt, and you can imagine what that meant. Following the incident, I instituted the purchase of some 'Casualty Officers Emergency Dungarees' as an addition to the kit. Averil Mansfield established herself as a pioneer in every sense of the word when she qualified as a surgeon in the early 1970s. At the time just two per cent of her colleagues were female, and she was often met with surprise, bordering on disbelief and amusement, when telling people what she did. But time and again, Averil proved herself more than capable of the role which had been her greatest dream since the age of eight. After a formidable operating career in Liverpool and London, during which she made many enduring friendships, she went on to became the UK's first ever female professor of surgery. Life in Her Hands is the remarkable story of a truly trailblazing woman. Averil's account shines light on a medical and societal world that has changed beyond measure, but which - as she shows through her experiences - still has a long way to go for the women finding their place within it.

The author describes her upbringing in a totally self-sufficient home built in the middle of the woods in 1970s Maine, a childhood that was marred by the drowning death of her three-year-old sister.

'A great read. I am honoured to have worked with such a legend' David Nott 'A role model for women' Independent 'A wonderful read' Julian Fellowes 'Remarkable' Lauren Laverne 'Charming' Guardian We were occasionally expected to travel by ambulance to a serious case and would always have a kit of tools and drugs ready for emergency calls. On one occasion, we were responding to a man who had fallen into the hold of a grain ship and broken his leg. I was expected to go down a pole into the ship to administer analgaesia before he could be rescued. The 'audience' of shipworkers delighted in telling me that there were rats the size of dogs down in the grain. The other problem was that this was the era of the mini skirt, and you can imagine what that meant. Following the incident, I instituted the purchase of some 'Casualty Officers Emergency Dungarees' as an addition to the kit. Averil Mansfield established herself as a pioneer in every sense of the word when she qualified as a surgeon in the early 1970s. At the time just two per cent of her colleagues were female, and she was often met with surprise, bordering on disbelief and amusement, when telling people what she did. But time and again, Averil proved herself more than capable of the role which had been her greatest dream since the age of eight. After a formidable operating career in Liverpool and London, during which she made many enduring friendships, she went on to became the UK's first ever female professor of surgery. Life in Her Hands is the remarkable story of a truly trailblazing woman. Averil's account shines light on a medical and societal world that has changed beyond measure, but which - as she shows through her experiences - still has a long way to go for the women finding their place within it.

When she discovers that she is pregnant, fifteen-year-old Gail is torn by indecision about whether to keep the baby as she would like or give it up for adoption.

From the beginning, Alison was different to most children, yet through the strength of her personality and the nurturing of her artistic talents, she was determined to live as full a life as possible. A woman born without arms, she has gone on to be an artist, mother and inspiration to many. My Life in My Hands challenges our perceptions of disability by showing how Alison overcame pain, prejudice, violence and loneliness to reach a state of happy independence. My Life in My Hands is an extraordinary and compelling story like no other.