Critical Care : A Life in Medicine

Critical Care is a moving collection of poems tracing a lifetime shaped by medicine. It follows the poet’s journey through distinct stages: a childhood in Cornwall, where his father served as a rural GP and his mother worked as a nursing sister; his own career as a GP in Suffolk; his later experiences as a patient; and, finally, his role as a grandparent to Archie, a brain-damaged grandson, and Annabel, his granddaughter living in California. Alongside these personal reflections, the poems explore the profound changes in medical practice over time. The intimate, family-centred care of earlier decades—when home visits were routine—has given way to a more technological, impersonal system, where face-to-face contact with a doctor is increasingly rare. Written mainly in free verse, the poems aim to capture the emotional depth and complexity of these experiences with honesty and sensitivity