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Welcome to the first of a short special series of "Bedside Poetry" podcasts.

One poem, one guest, one conversation....

I'm delighted to welcome neonatologist and poet Beth Osmond to explore Angel Nafis' poem "Ode to Dalya's Bald Spot"

find the poem here:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/149508/ode-to-dalyas-bald-spot

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This is the last episode in season eight of the podcast. What a season we've had, finishing off with discussion of Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy. I'm delighted to welcome Laura Shtaingos to the podcast today. Laura wears a number of hats, mostly working within the perinatal mental health space. And it was really, really good to be talking to her about Claire Kilroy's extraordinary, raw novel. which I think brings up lots of themes very pertinent for anybody who is looking after young parents, parents of small children, and looking after children, recognising that children do not exist in a vacuum.

I would say if you are a new parent yourself and really struggling, this book might be a big challenge. It might be one where you really feel seen, heard and normalised or it might be quite traumatic and quite triggering. So I think it needs to come with a bit of a warning, but it was absolutely wonderful to welcome Laura today and really to think about this novel and what we can take away from it.

Laura volunteers with https://www.babyumbrella.org.uk/

Find Laura here: https://www.westkentcounsellor.co.uk/how-i-work

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I'm delighted to welcome Abi Lucking, GP and Medical Educator to Bedside Reading today. We are talking about Dirty Laundry by Richard Pink and Roxanne Emery. You may have come across Rich and Rox. They are the couple ADHD_love_ frequently to be found on Instagram and on Facebook and TikTok.  It was really, really good to find that they had written a great book, which is very short, very accessible, very readable, and one of the most compassionate and wise books I've read in the last few months. I really, really enjoyed it, and I've really enjoyed exploring it with Abi: thinking about ADHD, being the partner of somebody with ADHD, supporting colleagues or trainees who are or might have ADHD. It's a really, really good book and I have thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed thinking about it.

Abi recommended the book ADHD effect on marriage by Melissa Orlov
https://adhdmarriage.com/content/adhd-effect-marriage-understand-and-rebuild-your-relationship-six-steps

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The Reverend Richard Cole's memoir of grieving for his husband David, The Madness of Grief, is I think one of the most brilliant and moving books on the topic I have ever read. When I started the podcast, I imagined that it wouldn't be long before somebody got in contact and wanted to talk about it. So it's been astonishing that we are almost at the end of season eight before a guest has asked to come and talk about it. And I'm glad I waited because I have loved talking to Lynsey Bennett today and about grief, about complex grief, about communication in and around grief. This is such an accessible, moving and funny book, one which I have recommended to a lot of patients as well as to colleagues and it was really good to have a conversation about it.

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It's a really warm welcome back today to Anna Baverstock, a paediatrician from Taunton in Somerset. We are talking today about A Beginner's Guide to Dying by Simon Boas. Don't let the word dying in the title put you off. This is an absolutely wonderful and incredibly uplifting short book. It was written by Simon Boas in the last few months of his life.

It is reflections on a life immensely well lived and his reflections on the way to be. How to live life to the full, especially when you know that it's going to be short. It's very moving, it's properly laugh out loud funny and it's taught me and Anna a great deal.

Follow Anna on social media here:

https://bsky.app/profile/annabav.bsky.social

https://www.instagram.com/annadoodleaday/

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Lucy Easthope's book, When the Dust Settles, is quite possibly one of the most astonishing things I have ever read. Having come back to it for today's podcast, I am struck again by the compassionate wisdom with which Lucy writes and how relevant the themes from disaster recovery are to all of us, particularly those of us working in healthcare. It was such a treat to talk to Lucy herself.

I think I managed not to be too fan girly during the course of this interview. You can let me know if I succeeded or not. It really is such a treat to welcome her to Bedside Reading, to think about her book When the Dust Settles, and also about her new book Come What May, which is going to be released in the UK in May 2025.

Find Lucy on social media here:

https://bsky.app/profile/lucygobag.bsky.social

https://twitter.com/LucyGoBag

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Today I am talking to Kas Hawes, a GP in the North of England, about her book, The Heart of the Matter, A Day in the Life of a GP. On the jacket, it is described as "a unique story, the story of a doctor and the many patients she sees every day, a tale of the diversity of life, the uniqueness of individuals and the impact of deprivation on the health of society".  The blurb goes on to say this is a book about "being human, the challenge of being on the front line, trying to heal with kindness whilst fighting in an extra rising tide of need." 

This is such a good book. I'm a GP. I didn't learn anything new from it, but it wasn't a busman's holiday sort of a book. It really was one that made me think. I'm a little bit jealous actually that I didn't write it myself because Kas really does represent so well the consultations that are going on every day in every health centre. I really love the way that she reflects before and after those incidents with patients and really gives us some insight into the way that GPs think. It's a really good book and I really really enjoy talking to Kas about it.

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What a treat recording this episode was.  Such a privilege to meet one of my medical writing heroes,  Dr. Rageshri Dhairyawan to talk about her book, Unheard, The Medical Practice of Silencing. If you haven't read it yet, oh my goodness, I'm actually quite jealous. You're in for a real treat. It's an absolutely wonderful book.

I listened to the audiobook and it felt like having Rageshri with me as I was pottering around the house doing my chores and as I was driving to work though it's a very beautiful book in hard copy version as well.  It has been an absolute joy and delight to talk to Rageshri about her really wonderful and very very important book which I think is for everybody.

we also mentioned this book and amazing writer: https://wellcomecollection.org/books/divided

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I was so glad to get to talk to GP Amy Fulton about Prophet Song by Paul Lynch.  This is an astonishingly good dystopian fiction novel, which I thoroughly thoroughly enjoyed. It's unusual to find a novel that really has you gripped, sucked into another world imagining something unimaginable and then brought back to earth again and again and again when you realise that this is fiction and of course this is not happening in Ireland where this book is set but that there is a lot more reality in what Paul Lynch is writing about than we want there to be.

Prophet Song is an incredibly, incredibly good book, which has really made me think so much. And it was a real joy to talk to Amy about it and think about some of the themes in there that can really make a difference to us as healthcare professionals.

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I'd like to dedicate today's episode of Bedside Reading to Corporal Hugh Cunningham of the Royal Engineers.  Hugh died in 2009 as a result of PTSD. And as I read Matthew Green's Aftershock: the Untold Story of Surviving Peace, I thought a lot about him and his family, as well as more widely about other military veterans affected by PTSD.

I've really enjoyed my conversation with Manchester Portfolio GP Zalan Alam  today. It is such an important book. I'm not going to lie and say I really enjoyed it. I didn't. I found it an incredibly difficult read. But it is a very, very important book about a subject which we really are not talking enough about.And I really do think this is a book that everybody and anybody who's working anywhere in the health service should be picking up

Aftershock is a book about PTSD, it's a book about military veterans, about what we are doing and sadly not doing to support them. I recognise that a lot has happened in the 10 years since the book was published so perhaps things are better than they were then. I'm not sure and I don't think we can be complacent and I don't think we can think enough about this incredibly vulnerable group of patients.

It's a deservedly emotional and tough read, but we do really need to be thinking about this a lot more and we really need to be doing better.

If you want your practice to become a RCGP Veteran Friendly Practice find out more here https://elearning.rcgp.org.uk/course/view.php?id=803

It may help to signpost patients to Veteran's Gateway
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/find-support-for-veterans-and-their-families

Zalan also recommends http://www.overcoming.co.uk