Breathtaking - BookWyrm

240 pages

English language

Published Jan. 28, 2021 by Little, Brown Book Group Limited.

ISBN:: 978-1-4087-1378-5
Goodreads:: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/55922864-breathtaking

(1 review)

How does it feel to confront a pandemic from the inside, one patient at a time? To bridge the gulf between a perilously unwell patient in quarantine and their distraught family outside? To be uncertain whether the protective equipment you wear fits the science or the size of the government stockpile? To strive your utmost to maintain your humanity even while barricaded behind visors and masks?

Rachel is a palliative care doctor who looked after the most gravely unwell patients on the Covid-19 wards of her hospital. Amid the tensions, fatigue and rising death toll, she witnessed the courage of patients and NHS staff alike in conditions of unprecedented adversity. For all the bleakness and fear, she found that moments that could stop you in your tracks abounded. People who rose to their best, upon facing the worst, as a microbe laid waste to the population.

Her new book, Breathtaking, …

How does it feel to confront a pandemic from the inside, one patient at a time? To bridge the gulf between a perilously unwell patient in quarantine and their distraught family outside? To be uncertain whether the protective equipment you wear fits the science or the size of the government stockpile? To strive your utmost to maintain your humanity even while barricaded behind visors and masks?

Rachel is a palliative care doctor who looked after the most gravely unwell patients on the Covid-19 wards of her hospital. Amid the tensions, fatigue and rising death toll, she witnessed the courage of patients and NHS staff alike in conditions of unprecedented adversity. For all the bleakness and fear, she found that moments that could stop you in your tracks abounded. People who rose to their best, upon facing the worst, as a microbe laid waste to the population.

Her new book, Breathtaking, is an unflinching insider's account of medicine in the time of coronavirus. Drawing on testimony from nursing, acute and intensive care colleagues - as well as, crucially, her patients - Clarke argue that this age of contagion has inspired a profound attentiveness to - and gratitude for - what matters most in life.

3 editions

Nerywood reviewed Breathtaking by Rachel Clarke

Review of 'Breathtaking' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Wow. Just wow. If you ever wonder what a doctor's perspective has been during the first wave of COVID-19 in the UK then read this book. This book was written from Jan 1st 2020 to the end of April 2020.

One thing I wish the author did different, was in the acknowledgements, she listed her book crew (agent, editors, publishing team) before her family, patients, and NHS staff. Without those people (family, patients, etc...) then she would have nothing to write about.

There are many things in the book that you will highlight or that will stand out. Here are some of mine,

'He is not a statistic,’ Robert says again, more resolutely. Then he pauses. In the bleakness and tenderness of the next four words, I think I understand for the first time the true cost of a pandemic. ‘He’s my best friend,’ he murmurs.

‘I’m not exactly scared …

Wow. Just wow. If you ever wonder what a doctor's perspective has been during the first wave of COVID-19 in the UK then read this book. This book was written from Jan 1st 2020 to the end of April 2020.

One thing I wish the author did different, was in the acknowledgements, she listed her book crew (agent, editors, publishing team) before her family, patients, and NHS staff. Without those people (family, patients, etc...) then she would have nothing to write about.

There are many things in the book that you will highlight or that will stand out. Here are some of mine,

'He is not a statistic,’ Robert says again, more resolutely. Then he pauses. In the bleakness and tenderness of the next four words, I think I understand for the first time the true cost of a pandemic. ‘He’s my best friend,’ he murmurs.

‘I’m not exactly scared of dying, but I can’t bear the thought of leaving my children. I am married to another doctor. We both know there is a chance we are going to turn our kids into orphans.’

The absent agony of relatives, I am learning, is the pandemic’s cruellest feature.

‘I choose to be here, in a way, because it is the one normal thing I have left. Coming here and doing my job is the one routine that hasn’t been taken from me.’

"I never wanted Red Arrows, medals or minutes of silence. Like my colleagues, my needs were more prosaic. Really, I just wanted honesty from those who rule us, sufficient Covid testing and fit-for-purpose PPE. The irony, after all, could not have been lost on Boris Johnson that the one thing Hollywood scriptwriters reliably award their superheroes is, at least, a mask and cape"

Subjects

Medicine