Trust Me, I'm a (Junior) Doctor

by Max Pemberton

Hodder & Stoughton £12.99, pp298

Based on his weekly columns for the Telegraph, Max Pemberton's behind-the-scenes account of the NHS reads like Scrubs: The Blog. A mix of fiction and autobiography, this diary-style account of Pemberton's first year on the wards is funny and awful in equal measure. 'It's a little after midnight and I've already been working since 8am this morning,' he writes early on.

The desperation of long hours and massive workload is lifted by Pemberton's wit. Answering his pager is 'like a hideous gameshow, but without the prospect of royalties when it's rerun on UKTV Gold'. Death is a similar inconvenience: 'As I stare at Mr Clarke all I can think is why does he have to be dying during my shift? Couldn't he have waited?'

Pemberton and fellow medical grad chums run the gauntlet of indifferent and downright evil senior doctors as they muddle their way through each day, sneaking fags behind the back doors of A&E; his one respite is Trudy, a secretary, who lets him hide in her office and feeds him angel cake. The story of individual patients - the man admitted with a hairbrush up his rectum, the average five dead bodies he sees a week - are held together by the hopes and loves of Max and his gang. Will they make it to the end of the year? Will any of them still want to be doctors? It's a story that will strike fear and respect into the hearts of those of us fortunate enough not to work in the NHS.