Breaking and Mending

A Junior Doctor’s Stories of Compassion and Burnout

By: Joanna Cannon

Narrated by: Joanna Cannon

The unforgettable memoir from the best-selling author of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep and Three Things About Elsie.

A few years ago, I found myself in A&E. I had never felt so ill. I was mentally and physically broken. So fractured, I hadn't eaten properly or slept well or even changed my expression for months. I sat in a cubicle, behind paper-thin curtains, and I shook with the effort of not crying. I was an inch away from defeat...but I knew I had to carry on. Because I wasn't the patient. I was the doctor.

No sleep, skeleton support, a head full of anatomy lectures and idealism: this is life for our junior doctors in their first few years on the wards. Here, Joanna Cannon tells her own story in visceral, heart-rending snapshots.

We walk with her, facing extraordinary and daunting moments and meeting her patients: from attending her first postmortem, learning the overwhelming power of a well or badly chosen word and sitting with a young woman in her final hours to small sustaining acts of kindness and connection. These moments teach her that emotional care can be just as critical as restoring a heartbeat - and eventually lead her to her true home in psychiatry.

Deeply moving, warm, compassionate and beautifully written, Breaking and Mending shows us why we need to better care for mental health - and for those who care for us.

©2019 Joanna Cannon (P)2019 Hachette Audio UK

Beautifully written and narrated

It was her story, and grateful to have been able to hear it and see life from her perspective if for just that snippet of her life. And the highlighting of mental illness was very illuminating for me. It’s an aspect of society that we want to tuck away and out of sight on the edges of society.

Must Read

This book will forever be in my Favorites column. Joanna Cannon writes beautifully while telling her own story and the stories of others who impacted her, in a powerful and heart-rending way. Absolute must-read if you know or love a doctor — or even if you don’t.