To be a medical novice who makes decisions which - if you get them wrong - might forever alter, or end, a person’s life? Clarke is a superb storyteller as well as a clear-eyed polemicist . . . she writes with such compassion and humanity that you feel you are in the room . . . Clarke is certainly on the side of the angels and she has produced much more than a snapshot. Breathtaking is a beautiful, blistering account of a key moment in our history. If I were Boris Johnson, I wouldn't want to read it -- Christina Patterson ― Sunday Times As Clarke shares some of the traumatic experiences she went through in understaffed hospital shifts, I am moved by her longing to do the best for her patients—a worthy desire which is constantly being thwarted by the long hours and an impossible workload. She describes herself running between wards, frenzied and sleep-deprived, trying to stay sane while not letting her mounting frustration get in the way of treating patients with kindness and respect. My times are in Thy hand; Deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me. In the Sunday Times best-selling Your Life in My Hands, Rachel depicts life as a junior doctor on the NHS frontline. A heartfelt, deeply personal memoir that is both a powerful polemic on the degradation of Britain's most vital public institution and a love letter of hope and optimism to that same health service.

In this heartfelt, deeply personal account of life as a junior doctor in today’s health service, former television journalist turned doctor, Rachel Clarke, captures the extraordinary realities of ordinary life on the NHS front line. From the historic junior doctor strikes of 2016 to the ‘humanitarian crisis’ declared by the Red Cross, the overstretched health service is on the precipice, calling for junior doctors to draw on extraordinary reserves of what compelled them into medicine in the first place - and the value the NHS can least afford to lose - kindness. a decade after we faced the abyss, the compassion and humanity of one NICU nurse remain indelibly etched in my memory. The goodwill and kindness without which the NHS will not survive are being inexorably squeezed out by underfunding, understaffing and the ever more unrealistic demands placed upon a floundering workforce. My personal conviction is that the primary goal of any healthcare system should be to serve its people and ensure their health and wellbeing. The vision of the NHS is awe-inspiring, yet, sadly, it has been increasingly besieged by policies that contradict its founding principles. Most Interesting Part of the Book Why does the Almighty not reserve times for judgment? Why may those who know Him never see His days?

Clarke, who comes from four generations of doctors, is a skilful writer and her passion for her profession shines through the many personal, moving and unsettling stories of life on the front line. One patient with cancer is told with extraordinary tenderness that she is going to die; another makes an astonishing recovery when all seemed futile. And there is a very intimate description of death itself.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(15) My times are in thy hand-- i.e., the vicissitudes of human life (LXX. and Vulg. have "my destinies") are under Divine control, so that the machinations of the foe cannot prevail against one whom God intends to deliver. For the expression comp. 1Chronicles 29:30, "the times that went over him," Isaiah 33:6. It is a well-known fact, referred to in Rachel Clarke’s eloquent and moving account of her life as a junior doctor, that candidates at interviews for medical school should never say that they want to help people. Instead, you must use a code — talk about wanting to make a difference, or of finding medicine and disease fascinating, or your love of using your hands. Clarke has written the UK's human story of Covid. Weaving together stories of patients, families, nurses, doctors and paramedics as the virus spread from New Year's Day to the end of April 2020. She reveals the desperate times and the government's mistakes but also how people from all walks of life - inside the NHS and out - have tried to reach out and show goodness to one another ― Stylist To toughen up the hard way, through repeated exposure to life-and-death situations, until you are finally a match for them?Nearing the end of the book, the reversal of roles is again brought to the fore as Clarke’s father was diagnosed with aggressive cancer, and she faced the anguish of being the loved one of a patient who might slip away at any moment. Yet, even in the midst of despondence, Clarke expresses heartfelt gratitude towards her country’s health service for its collective decision to “provide healthcare without charge to those in need”. Her pride in being an NHS doctor shines through the impending tragedy and general miasma of uncertainty that hangs over its future. Firstly the narrator cannot pronounce words such as telephonist and Agence France Presse, amongst countless others. Her voice has an annoying patronising tone. The writer tries to paint herself as struggling to pay herself through med school, neglecting to be honest about being married to a fighter pilot at the time. This isn't a poor single woman modestly paying her way. She's the third generation of a well to do medical family with ample support and funds. That's fine but don't paint a picture that is different from the reality of a privileged public school girl, immersed in the medical world from birth, who was fortunate enough to have husband and family to support her to become a doctor after a brief career in journalism. While I am personally not inclined to take any sides in such conflicts without a more complete understanding of the situation, I am nevertheless appalled by the Health Secretary’s avoidance of frank conversations with the people whom his policies will most directly affect. The unjust connotations that made the lapse in patient safety seem like the fault of junior doctors were also deeply disturbing. My times are in thy hand: Deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me.