'Rachel Clarke's finest book yet' Financial Times; A September 2024 BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week and a Guardian best science and nature book of 2024
Michael Rosenthal chairs a discussion on our health service with Rachel Clarke and Iona Heath. As a hopeful medical student Iona read author and art critic John Berger's A Fortunate Man, corresponded with Berger for 20 years, and is convinced that reading Berger made her a better General Practitioner. Rachel's latest, profoundly moving, best selling work is the story of the urgent journey of the heart of nine-year-old Keira, victim of a fatal car accident; the history of the remarkable medical innovations that made possible the transplant of Keira’s heart to nine-year-old Max; and the knowledge and dedication not just of surgeons but of countless physicians, immunologists, nurses and scientists.
‘A Fortunate Man is a masterpiece of witness; a three way mediation on humanity, society and the value of healing’ Dr Gavin Francis
Reviews for The Story of a Heart:
“beautifully written and utterly vital” INews
“told in an accessible, humane way” Guardian
Michael Rosenthal, son of a doctor, is Emeritus professor of the history of art at the University of Warwick. He is author of books on Constable and Gainsborough and currently working on the art of early settler Australia.
Rachel Clarke is a physician, specialising in end of life care at Katharine House Hospice, Oxford. She is the author of the best selling memoir Dear Life and Breathtaking, an account of working inside the NHS during the UK's first wave of COVID-19, a work that formed the basis of a TV series of the same name and best selling memoir Dear Life.
Iona Heath is a retired inner city general practitioner (1975 –2010) and past president of UK Royal College of General Practitioners (2009 – 2012)