Catch Your Breath: The Secret Life of a Sleepless Anaesthetist

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His and his colleagues sense of humanity shines through and I can’t recommend this book enough to all of you. In medicine, you are not just carrying out procedures, but rather you are helping real life people and it is so important to respect their wishes when working.

Sparse is an effective style, I just wanted to see more of his own style come through in the rest of the book. There are around 50 episodes featuring guests such as James Acaster, Rose Matafeo, Joe Lycett, Reginald D Hunter and Andy Hamilton. So to all those that railed against nurses doing dance video’s on Tik Tok, for those that blamed medical teams for cancelling surgery, closing clinics, take a step back and take a long deep look into your souls and acknowledge the debt we owe these people.I found I didn’t want to put it down, even when I felt the remembrance of the early days of the Covid Pandemic coming back, because his warmth and humour made it easier to deal with. Hard hitting and hilariously funny, not quite the combination youd expect from a behind the scenes tale of an anaesthetist!

What struck me most was the realization that their contribution extends far beyond the operating room. Ed Patrick takes us on his sleep deprived, hilarious, heart breaking, journey into becoming a medical student, through his years of training and then on rotation as a junior doctor, before making the decision to begin his training to become an anaesthetist.The first part is very light-hearted, and to be honest, he doesn't always inspire confidence as he recounts his experiences. I received an eARC of this book via Netgalley and Octopus Publishing, in exchange for an honest review. After the years the whole country has dealt with thanks to the Covid pandemic, to hear it through the words on someone who was on the frontline was quite something. Full of humour, raw honesty and emotional chapters, this is a book that will stay with me and will recommend to everyone.

However, I HIGHLY recommend this book to people who like medical memoirs but aren’t anaesthetists themselves. I really think it's a medical area that is often overlooked and underestimated but Ed has done a fab job of bringing the role to life and highlighting how complex and interesting it can be. Anaesthetist and comedian Ed Patrick shares many funny and touching stories from his journey to working as an NHS specialist and a bit (although not too much, as we’re all sick of it!

He gives us a glimpse of his life, and that of the other medical professionals, in the ICU as they helplessly watch patients die in spite of their best efforts. A respectful first hand account of training and being a doctor especially during the pandemic of COVID. Throughout the book, as I have seen in many others, are scattered complaints about how underfunded and unmodernized the NHS is, along with compliments for it, of course, as it seems the author still has a job he would like to keep. Other things I've done include creating and presenting the pilot Infectious Personalities on BBC Radio 2, where my guests were Charlie Brooker and Sindhu Vee.

He is cutting his teeth in anaesthetics, taking people as close to death as you can take them, and then trying to wake them up again. On top of this it's moving without being overwrought, and insightful about the issues facing the NHS without being preachy. Yet through all of this, the abuse from the Covid deniers, the corruption around PPI, they kept going, they found humour in the darkest of moments! It definitely made me appreciate the NHS and everyone in the health and care professions so much more and opened my eyes toward the struggles and hardships that the NHS really went through. I said for a while that I didn’t want to read or watch anything to do with Covid or the pandemic - why, indeed, when I lived through it?

I feel that the author was trying quite desperately to be funny in an Adam Kay sort of way but it just wasn’t working… sorry. This is shown in the book through the occurrence of the pandemic and how that shifted hospital life for many.