Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
A Fortunate Woman tells her compelling, true story, and how the tale of the old doctor has threaded through her own life in magical ways. Working within a community she loves, she is a rarity in contemporary medicine: a modern doctor who knows her patients inside out, the lives of this ancient, wild place entwined with her own.
A Fortunate Woman: A Country Doctor’s Story - The Top Ten
Every reader will meditate on their own encounters with GPs. Of her doctor, Morland writes: “Her life’s work is not simply about the application of a body of knowledge to an assortment of human objects… it is a pursuit meaningful in and of itself.” The word “relationship” is often used. The doctor says that hers is the only branch of medicine founded on relationships.In the snow-bound January of 1947, a new GP arrived in “the valley”. He had served as a navy surgeon in the war, but now he was a country doctor, there to stay. Eighteen months later, each of his patients received a terse letter: “You are now part of the National Health Service, so you don’t need to pay me any more, thank you very much.” He remained for 35 years. This was exactly my cup of tea. A beautifully written portrait of a rural GP whose tender care for her patients elicits such trust, admiration and even friendship that it seems almost alien in our transactional medical system. An immersive study… Morland’s book contains a profound message for the future at a critical moment for general practice and us all. Times Literary Supplement
A Fortunate Woman by Polly Morland review — doing the rounds A Fortunate Woman by Polly Morland review — doing the rounds
It’s the boiling frog analogy,” Hodges says. “The water’s not been comfortable for a decade, but it’s now very noticeably warmer. It will soon reach a threshold where there is a collapse.” Superb – beautiful, enthralling, careful, tender. It is not just a portrait of the doctor and all those she serves, but a memoir of an entire English community, timeless and revelatory. I found it deeply moral, moving, lucid, and loving. Laura Cumming, author of On Chapel Sands Contains a profound message for the future at a critical moment for general practice and us all' - Wendy Moore, TLSIn A Fortunate Woman, with its beautiful photographs by Richard Baker, Polly Morland has written a profoundly moving love letter to a landscape, a community and, above all, to what it means to be a good doctor. Polly Morland and Richard Baker have more than done justice to the original John Berger book – and produced a work that stimulates the eye and the mind in equal measure. Alain de Botton You have the sense that making 100 potentially hazardous decisions an hour takes its toll. It’s one of the reasons that it’s hard to retain reception staff, though most here have been in the job for several years. “The anger has got much worse,” Hodges says, “whipped up by parts of the press.” He shows me a report of an earlier call where a patient had screamed abuse. The Aspen partnership merged five smaller practices in a purpose-built complex, in common with trends across the country, to give it the scale to create specialist teams and to spread risk. “There is,” Hodges says, “always the threat in small partnerships of being the last man standing; if you are in a partnership of two and your partner resigns then you have all the financial liability of an asset you are not allowed to sell.” A beautifully written book, both moving and humbling. Lissa Evans, author of Crooked Heart and Old Baggage
Great Deal 
New Comment