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A warm welcome today to Ellen Basuk and Daniel Schoonover, the authors of Between Two Worlds, a wonderful mother-son memoir of Daniel's mental health difficulties and diagnosis at the age of 19, schizophrenia, and his mum, Ellen, a psychiatrist's approach to enabling Daniel to live a good life and get the support that he needed. It's a book which really made me think a lot about recovery-oriented care, about children who are seen to be different. about the confines of the school system and recognising that Ellen, a psychiatrist, fought and battled and did things her own way and eventually got elements of care that were going to work for her son. It really made me think about all of the other children growing up with challenges who are not well served by the terribly underfunded and rigid systems that we are currently expecting of people.

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I'm delighted to welcome Shannon Ivey to Bedside Reading today. We are talking about her wonderful memoir, Welcome to the Shit Show, her story of being diagnosed with stage 3 bowel cancer 10 years ago at the age of 42. It is brilliant to know that Shannon is still with us, still making people laugh, still full of energy and vitality.

I absolutely loved her book. It made me laugh. It made me cry. It made me think. I think most important is Shannon's message that rates of bowel cancer in young and middle-aged women are rising really, really fast.  The demographic that we expect to have bowel cancer is not the demographic that does have bowel cancer. Sadly, in the States, far too many women are dying from bowel cancer and are presenting very, very late.

It's been a real pleasure to meet Shannon and talk to her about her book and about some of the work that she is doing to try and change those statistics.

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Sunday 8th of March was International Women's Day and so today, Tuesday  10th is our special International Women's Day themed episode where I am talking to Charley Baker about the horrifying, eye-opening and thought-provoking book that is The New Age of Sexism by Laura Bates.


This is a book which has really changed me. It has opened my eyes to so many aspects of technology which worry me. It has made me think about systemic inequality and gender inequity,  society, the world of AI and technology in a way that I had never really considered before. It is an absolutely superb read and I have so enjoyed talking to Charley about it and unpicking some of my feelings about the topic.

Find Charley on X:  https://x.com/CharleyBaker1

and on instagram https://www.instagram.com/charleybakerthebookpusher/

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I think that there is sometimes a bit of snobbery around genres of books. The self-help market is huge. It's there for a reason but I think sometimes those of us who really enjoy self-help feel that perhaps we should be going to some kind of self-help books anonymous club where we can talk about our love of the genre unimpeded by the judgment of others!

Last year, Anna Baverstock reminded me that actually self-help books are "leadership and development" books, and that helped me to see them in a different light and be slightly less embarrassed about how much I enjoy them.

The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins is, I think, one of the best self-help or leadership and development books that I have ever read. I can really, truly put my hand on my heart and say that it has changed me and very definitely for the better. So it's been a real joy to discover that my guest today, Dr Emma Cunliffe, feels similarly changed by Mel.

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I'm not entirely sure whether Anita and I have really even scratched the surface of a discussion about Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. We've both acknowledged that Chimamanda is one of our absolutely favourite novelists and her new novel, Dream Count, does not disappoint on any front. There are themes galore in this book. There are stories of four rather different women whose lives coincide.

There are lots of reflections on very common, almost mundane life and health themed issues like constipation and premenstrual dysphoric disorder.  We have elements around class and status. We have lots of thoughts around culture clash. Fundamentally, this is a novel about friendship and about how the world changed during the pandemic. Did we become closer because of video calls, or are we more distanced because of them?

It is such a wonderful novel. i have utterly loved talking to Anita today, and I really think if you haven't read this already, it should be on your to-be-read pile.

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Poor by Katrina O'Sullivan is a book which has really, really stayed with me. I listened to it as an audiobook and I could not stop listening.  I think it helps that Katrina has a fabulous voice, but actually the voice, both physically and in what she is talking about, is so powerful and so compelling.

It was a real joy to talk to Lydia Fairhurst about this brilliant book, which I think has taught me much more about child safeguarding than any safeguarding training I've ever been on. It's taught me much more about trauma-informed care than any course I've ever been on. And most importantly, it has really made me think about the voices of people who we often choose not to listen to, because every voice matters. Every child's voice matters. Every adult's voice matters. Sometimes people will say things which we disagree with. I feel strongly that is the point at which we have to challenge ourselves to think about why we are disagreeing with them whether our thoughts are based in prejudice and in privilege and I am forever grateful for having discovered Katrina O'Sullivan via her book and more recently from following her on Instagram because almost weekly she challenges my thinking and I hope is making me a much better doctor.

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I love it when a guest approaches me and says, "please, can I talk about this book?" especially when it's a book that I've never, ever come across before. And today is one of those days. We are talking about The Birds by Tarjei Vesaas, which is an absolutely beautiful, very short Norwegian novel published in the 1950s, which I had never come across before.

My life is so much better for having come across it. And I think my care of patients and families has been dramatically improved by having read it. So a huge thank you to Ruth Maxey for both suggesting the novel and joining me today to talk about it.

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I'm really pleased today to welcome Dr Richard Duggins to Bedside Reading to talk about his book, Burnout Free Working.

We know that burnout is incredibly common in all professionals, particularly in health professionals. We also know that it is not always something we are talking enough about. Frustratingly, it is both preventable and incredibly, incredibly treatable. If only we know what's happening, if only we talk about it more, and if only we are supported to work in a healthier and better way.

I have really enjoyed reading this incredibly accessible book and I've absolutely loved talking to Richard today about some of the themes in it and I hope you will enjoy the conversation and if you haven't already discovered the book, we'll go out and get yourself a copy.

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I always enjoy talking to my guests about books. Sometimes I don't enjoy the book they've chosen. Often I am surprised by how much I have enjoyed something that I wasn't expecting to enjoy.  Today, though, is different to all of that. It's a real joy to welcome Ripon Ahmed back to the podcast to talk about what must be one of my all-time favourite novels featuring a doctor: The Citadel by A.J. Cronin. It is undoubtedly the book that made me know that I needed to be a GP. And I will be forever grateful for having discovered it when I was a final year medical student.  I've read it several times over the years and so much of it has stayed with me. So much of it seems really topical. And it has been such a pleasure to talk about it today with Ripon and explore the themes in the book, the storyline and how much of it is so very, very relevant to all of us working in health today.

We mentioned the Deep End movement https://www.yorkshiredeependgp.org/

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i've had the best fun setting up and recording today's podcast with Caryn Price and Georgina Benger. We are talking about a book that they have written together called Olive's Day. We also mentioned Willow's Day, which is the second in a series which we hope will be going to be. quite a big series of fabulous books written ostensibly for children but from which grown-ups can learn an awful lot.

Today's episode is all about adjustments, reasonable adjustments, pathological demand avoidance (or persistent drive for autonomy )and how we can support children and young people who have this neurotype in our encounters with them in healthcare care and beyond.


we mention the PDA society who have some great resources and support
https://www.pdasociety.org.uk/