The Human Kind

The Human Kind is a compelling account of some of the hardest cases in one doctor's career.
Everyone gets to be a patient sooner or later. Almost everyone has some experience of being misunderstood by doctors; encounters with difficult doctors; of relationships burdened with mutual bafflement, hostility and pain.
Every doctor is haunted by memories of difficult relationships with patients, of the decisions made, and the outcomes that followed. People whom, despite all of their patience, persistence, the best communication, diagnostic and reasoning skills, they haven't helped. People for whose unique suffering it seems medicine has nothing to offer.
Dr. Peter Dorward explores the many ethical dilemmas that GPs must face every day, to explain why it is that despite vast resources, time, skill and dedication, medicine is so often destined to fail. His recollections include his worst failures and biggest challenges, ranging from the everyday, the tragic, the grotesque, the villainous and the humorous.
The Human Kind presents a fresh understanding of the difficult relationship between doctor and patient, and the challenges which both must face.

Dr. Peter Dorward grew up in St Andrews, Scotland. Having worked for a number of years as a doctor in Bolivia, Nicaragua, Belize and London, he is now a GP and medical teacher based in Edinburgh. He is an award-winning author of short stories and screenplays. His novel Nightingale was published in 2007 by Two Ravens Press.

Introduction: A Private Garden
I Just Want to Help you to Die
The Problem of Alicia's Smile
How to be Good
The Real Karlo Pistazja
The Words to Say It
Shangalang
Three Views of a Mountain
Opiates are the Opiate of the People: Part 1
When Darkness Falls
The Ghost in the Machine
Opiates are the Opiate of the People: Part 2
Notes on sources
Acknowledgements