Benjamin Daniels Quotes

Surgeons don't cut you open for fun. They would probably rather be playing rugby or getting very drunk and accusing each other of being gay. That is what they like doing best. They will only cut you open if they really have to. If you decide you don't want to be operated on, they will be only too happy to have one less patient on their ever-growing waiting lists. Very few surgeons are good at the touchy-feely sensitive stuff, but then us touchy-feely GPs would be rubbish at fixing a broken pelvis or repairing a burst aorta. You should see the mess I make trying to carve a roast chicken! We each have our skills and if it were me that was in need of an operation, I would happily put up with a slightly insensitive posh rugby boy if I knew that he was a good surgeon and could put me back together again.

Regardless of the country it is practised in, most of hospital medicine is painting over the cracks rather than fixing the wall.

I wasn't sure where to go from here. From the outside it seemed so straightforward. Leave, run away, start again. Julia had a lot going for her. She could have a whole new life. It clearly isn't this straightforward as there are thousands of women like Julia who don't leave or run away or start again. I would never really understand the complexities of Julia's violent relationship but one thing was very clear. When she said that Andy had nobody else, what she was really saying was that she didn't have anyone else. She was alone and, however difficult and abusive her relationship was, she clearly felt that it was all she had.

Thanks to Dr Nick Edwards, who helped persuade me to write this book. Feel free to read his book In Stitches. It is like mine but not as good.