From doctor’s office to writer’s chair: an interview with Dr John Firth

“There are many things that have happened in medicine in the time I’ve been a doctor,” says John, “and I thought that writing a novel would be a way of helping get my own thoughts in order about quite complicated things and initiating a bit of discussion.”

Kind & Sensible is John’s reckoning with the cultural shifts that have played out in medicine, drawn from his own experience of working as a doctor for forty years. “The book is about the need for honest conversations about what medicine can and should do, on both an individual level – when patients are frail and elderly or obviously dying – and what is sensible and realistic to expect from medicine in general.”

“The story is about a doctor who I’ve framed as ‘old school’: very knowledgeable, working very hard for his patients, but not somebody who ever learned to work in a team. An extremely frail and catastrophically ill woman is brought to the Emergency Department and for various reasons it’s not possible to contact her relatives. The doctor tries to keep her comfortable and she dies, and then a complaint is made about him by the relatives, that he didn’t try and make her better.”

“People have an expectation nowadays that things are going to be good,” he continues, “and if things aren’t good, people look for someone to blame. And that plays out in medicine.”

Before he sent his manuscript off to a publisher, John gave it to his wife (a Professor of Genetics), a friend who runs a publishing business, and a friend who, like John, was a doctor who has dipped her toe into popular writing. He laughs. “I’m sure they would’ve found a gentle way of telling me if it wasn’t very good!”

Although this is his first turn at fiction, John is no stranger to writing. John – who is also a consultant kidney specialist at Addenbrookes and one of the hospital’s deputy medical directors – is senior editor of the Oxford Textbook of Medicine, the standard reference work.

“I knew how you get medical books published, but not fiction. I didn’t manage to get an agent, but I spoke to a couple of published authors and they said that an agent wouldn’t be interested in me. They want a young author who has got a plan for at least three or four books, and they want somebody who is going to be a professional author who they can support.”

John’s novel has been published with the Book Guild, which is an independent publisher that accepts manuscripts directly from authors. “It’s very easy to self-publish,” he says, “but part of trying to get a publisher was a test: does somebody who doesn’t know me at all think it’s worth investing a bit of money in the book? I wanted to see if it would pass that test.”

With the book now out in the world, John is keen to see how people respond to the issues he’s raised, and whether it prompts any discussion around the way in which medicine is perceived, particularly in the UK.

“I’d like to make people pause and think a bit about what medicine can and should do for them and their family, about the reasons underlying the fact that the Addenbrooke’s Emergency Department is overflowing along with all other ED’s in the country.”

Learn more

John will be discussing his novel and selling copies at an event at ���ӽ紫ýon 19 March, in the Combination Room.

Head to the event page to sign up.