Much more emotional for me than the previous one. I'd love to have Daniels as my doctor. So aware and a heart of gold.
The fact that every other chapter was more serious, more tragic and made my eyes well up and the next would be called "Smelly bum" through me off a little bit. This resulted in me snort laughing while the sad story was still on my mind.

Actually, I think they shouldn’t have made a second book. It is not really humorous anymore. The first book was mostly funny, and at times grave and offered some impressive insights. This book, however, is mostly musing about the NHS, the system, fears, mistakes. With regular patients like Danni the prostitute or Crackhead Kenny, there isn’t much of a chance to be entertaining, is there? Then again, I don’t think anyone was forcing Dr Daniels to write a sequel. It’s a shame he did. It was quite informative but I was looking for a laugh, not a sigh.

Was it because of the years that passed? Was it the pressure to be hilarious again? He failed so miserably, I’m sorry to say. The only bits resembling funny are those that include a healthy dose of self-irony: introduction, medical notes (which he reluctantly included, in his own words a bit offended, because they were not his creative product), and the very end where he admits he was struggling to find material. He didn’t really manage.

The dedication seems like it was meant to be a joke but it is a bad one. Then it is all about responsibility, liability, death, cancer, drugs, old age and depression. I was starting to think it was me who was getting too depressed to laugh, so I counted the stories. Of the 69 pieces the book contains, 8 are about failure, humiliation or embarrassment, 7 deal with drug addiction, 5 with cancer and death, 1 cancer survivor having a baby, 7 deaths (without cancer), 2 with a person with HIV, 2 show effects of old age (dementia and delusions), 2 about war/army, 2 patients are imprisoned, one is a former inmate (a paedophile). There is a story about molestation, the other ones consist of child abuse, hunger, bitterly divorced parents, brain damaged baby, an overweight patient who eats a lot, a disgusting story, feeling guilty, one dedicating his body to science (but not his organs, that one is almost funny), the medical notes (I had to look up ‘halitosis’ though to get the joke), two with a twist, of which one he read on the Internet… Really?! Not even his own story. It could be entertaining at least, then. Five are about time wasters, and 10 are musings about health problems and health care (NHS). The humour is meant to be found in too big breasts, in poo/bottom (twice), or in foreign objects in the patient (twice, plus a list of 1+10 cases of objects in the bottom – even he says the medical staff is not amused by it at all. Neither are the readers.), and a pet in the rectum South Park style (not his story either). Well, I can Google “things in rectum funny medical stories”, too. I’m not interested, though.

There is one great story in it. No, it is not funny either but if you read anything from this book, read the one titled ‘John’. There are the ever-important parts about recognizing meningitis (as in the first book), and antibiotic resistance. Read these, too. An interesting piece about the human race’s arrogance with the rulers of this planet: bacteria. He is not the first doctor or thinker I hear this view from (the other ones are a doctor at an intensive care unit and H.G.Wells in The War of the Worlds). It was interesting but not in the least entertaining.

A good choice for an audiobook, but WARNING - you may cry and/or laugh out loud while driving.

A short book from Ben Daniels, Doctor, follow up to his first book of the same name, full of anecdotes taken from his time as a GP in a busy surgery and working in hospital wards.

We meet dozens of Dr Daniel's regulars and you feel the highs and lows of the job - I burst into tears when patients died and babies were born with brain damage. And laughed so loud I'm sure pedestrians outside my car heard me with the ridiculously hilarious story involving biscuits, a dog and foot callouses.

The good doctor does seem to tread a careful path, putting qualifiers on a lot of the stories (he even mentions previous reviews, so I did feel he was trying to tread a path between truth and not upsetting anyone).

That didn't stop the stories being moving, sad, uplifting - all of life was in there, all of society. And the life a doctor has to lead to be there for us in our time of need, we are reminded of their skill and what they have to put up with.

Costs associated with NHS care are discussed, and I was reminded of just what we might all have to pay if we didn't have it anymore.... A timely reminder indeed.

Entertaining and a down-to-earth reminder of the men and women who go over and above to keep up alive and healthy.

Again, another human medicine book that I could relate to. One thing I especially liked was that he pointed out how we call it the art of medicine because often we are actors in the exam room (for various reasons). Another thing I found profound was that he pointed out that many of us go into this field because we want people to like us and respect us. I really appreciated how human doctors have the same fears as veterinarians and I enjoyed the stories and how relatable they were to my own clients and patients.

Dr. Daniels is back with his hysterical narrative, witty anecdotes and unique viewpoint to the world of medicine.
I read his previous book 'Confessions of a GP' earlier this year and absolutely fell in love with it. Yes, it had a few flaws, like Daniel's judgemental point of view, but in this instalment, that had been corrected and now he comes across as funny rather than rude.
I am aware some people see this book as a money grabbing technique, and don't consider it necessary and to some extent, I agree. We didn't NEED this edition, I would have been fine without having it exist, because I was satisfied from the first book. However, I really enjoy these books, they're fun for me to read, and an escape from the predictable, cliche books that I've been stuck reading lately.
Although I love YA, I really do enjoy taking a break from my usual genre and diving into non-fiction for a while, particularly works of Ben Daniels because I find his books to be heartwarming, captivating and hilarious. Medicine is something I am very passionate about, as an aspiring paediatrician, so reading these books always makes me bubble with excitement and enthusiasm, to think that one day, I will be doing what Dr. Daniels is doing. Saving lives.
But hey, I'm only 16. I have a long way to go yet!
Something I particularly enjoyed about this edition to the series was how Dr. Daniels used it as a platform to discuss more important subject matters and addressed something that is quite controversial. One topic sparked an opinion, and that topic was: 'Should we name and shame doctors who make mistakes?'
Daniel's had his say on the matter, and now I would like to say mine: As long as doctors are human, mistakes will be made. Just because they have the title of a doctor, doesn't make them superhuman, or magical, or perfect. They're ordinary people. Like you or me. And mistakes are part of being human. As doctors, they try to prevent them, but they cannot stop them. Yes, they may miss that tiny tumour on someone's liver, or dismiss that cough when it indicates lung cancer, or think that tummy-ache is nothing out of the ordinary. It's inevitable, mistakes will be made, it's what makes us human. Therefore we shouldn't shame doctors who make a mistake that they will regret for the rest of their lives.
What we should do is take the positive out of the matter. Because after those mistakes have been made, Doctors can double check those scans of the liver, pay more attention to the cough and run a few more tests to make sure that the tummy-ache is nothing serious. Mistakes are a huge part of learning, and is what makes them better doctors.
Finally, I really enjoyed this book because it was interesting for me, as a medical geek, the anecdotes were funny (although, some were not as funny as the previous book, but still good) and discussed the view on more important topics.
In conclusion, I truly enjoyed this book and look forward to reading other works in the 'Confessions' series!
Love Lucy x