The Bad Doctor

'The territory of doctor as patient has been visited before, but Dr Williams's iteration and its resolution are as subtle and thought-provoking as the best of them.' New York Times

'Dr Iwan teaches us that being a person with a mental illness, with doubts and concerns, makes you a more empathetic doctor. Closer and more humane.' Zona Negativa

'Sharply observed, sympathetic scenes add up to a richly humane picture of a good man who can't appreciate how good he is.' Publishers Weekly

'Combines wickedly black humour with subtle characterisation that never fails to engage the audience's empathy. Graphic medicine with true heart.' Andy Oliver, Broken Frontier

'Really enjoyable and incisive... perfectly illustrates just what the modern GP is faced with on a daily basis.' Richard Bruton, Forbidden Planet

'A kind of pastoral with mid-life crisis, deep and droll... Iwan is sympathetic and empathetic, so why is the title The Bad Doctor? Read it and find out.' Independent

'I can't recommend [The Bad Doctor] highly enough I laughed out loud, there are so many candid moments of being a doctor that will resonate that are just so brilliant.' Dr Paddy Barrett, The Doctor Paradox.com

'A beautiful book about the practice of medicine and about how being vulnerable is OK. [Iwan James] is just this flawed, human being like the rest of us, who's doing his best. It's my favourite book about medicine in recent years.' Dr Ronan Kavanagh

'Ian Williams is the best thing to happen to medicine since penicillin.' Alison Bechdel

'The graphic novel format offers a richness and depth to this tale... There is much in this reflective graphic novel to help us all reconcile the personal and professional.' Euan Lawson, British Journal of General Practice

'Medicine is a visual discipline and so it is perhaps unsurprising that comics about illness and its treatment are increasingly popular.' Deborah Bowman, The Conversation

'It was impossible not to love this book. Ian Williams has possibly written a future classic, which must surely be added to the curriculum of all GP training schemes.' Dr Ian Fussell, BMJ Medical Humanities

'Demystifies and humanises the experience of doctoring... a really valuable contribution to our understanding of what it means to be a doctor.' Dr Michael Green

'Gentle, thoughtful, humorous, and with a real light touch.' Bryan Talbot

'As an antidote to the stresses and strains of modern life where the medical profession is still expected to cure all, The Bad Doctor is a warm, witty and undemanding read.' New Welsh Review

'Ian Williams, with this book, is my hero and I wish he were my doctor, too!... [A] skillfully told, relentlessly honest, often funny and obviously painfully true book. This is courageous work.' David Small

'Touching and funny in equal measure.' Cycle Active

'Any GP will recognize the heart-sink patients and the partnership issues in the book and will be willing it to end well for Dr James. I loved it.' Dr Emma Watts, PULSE

'Wry, comic, graphic, from the humdrum to the tragic, his patients' stories are the spokes that make Iwan's wheels go round in this humane and eloquently drawn account of a doctor's life.' Broken Frontier: Comic of the week

'Captures the ennui and helplessness of middle age with painful, hilarious clarity.' Viva Brighton

'This unputdownable graphic novel, like all great literature, makes you feel slightly less alone.' Philippa Perry

Préface

• Highly Commended British Medical Association Book Award: Primary Health Care Category, 2015 - Longlisted First Graphic Novel Competition, 2012 - Shortlisted Medicine Unboxed Creative Prize, 2015 - Longlisted British Comic Awards Best Book, 2014 - Longlisted British Comic Awards Emerging Talent, 2014 - Best Graphic Novels Sequential, 2014

Auteur

Ian Williams is a comics artist, doctor and writer, now living in Brighton. He has studied Medicine, Medical Humanities and Fine Art and he founded the website GraphicMedicine.org, coining the term that has been applied to the interaction between the medium of comics and the discourse of healthcare.

Born of a Welsh family, Williams grew up in the north of England and studied Medicine in Cardiff before moving to North Wales, where he lived for over twenty years, to pursue his love of mountaineering. He worked as a doctor while developing a side career as a painter and printmaker, exhibiting nationally and internationally. He undertook an MA in Medical Humanities and wrote a dissertation on medical narrative in comics and graphic novels.

Williams's attempt to find some common ground between his two careers led to the creation of his own comic strips in 2007, using the nom de plume 'Thom Ferrier' to maintain some anonymity while still working in rural general practice.

Populated by a cast of flawed characters, and shot through with gallows humour, his stories explore the darker side of medicine, revealing the harsh realities of human interaction and behaviour during times of stress and fear. The Bad Doctor, his debut graphic novel (Myriad, 2014), was highly commended by the British Medical Association at the Medical Book Awards 2015. His latest graphic novel, The Lady Doctor, was published by Myriad in January 2019.

He is also the author of a series of comic strips for The Guardian. Sick Notes is a weekly cartoon about the trials and tribulations of working within the NHS.

He is a joint Series Editor for the Graphic Medicine list by Penn State University Press, US publishers of The Bad Doctor.

Texte du rabat

A funny and eloquent graphic novel taking us behind the scenes of a GP practice and reminding us that doctors are human too, from cartoonist and doctor Ian Williams.

Résumé

A humane, moving and often very funny graphic novel about the life of a country doctor and those of his patients, cartoonist and doctor Ian Williams introduces us to Dr Iwan James: cyclist, doctor, would-be lover, former heavy metal fan and, above all, human being.

Weighed down by his responsibilities from diagnosing personality disorders to deciding who can hold a gun licence Iwan doubts his ability to make decisions about the lives of others when he may need more than a little help himself.

Incontinent old ladies, men with eagle tattoos, traumatised widowers Iwan's patients cause him both empathy and dismay, as he tries to do his best in a world of limited time and budgetary constraints, and in which there are no easy answers. His feelings for his partners also cause him grief: something more than friendship for the sympathetic Dr Lois Pritchard, and not a little frustration at the prankish and obstructive Dr Robert Smith.

Iwan's cycling trips with his friend Arthur provide some welcome relief, but even the landscape is imbued with his patients' distress. As we explore the phantoms from Iwan's past, we too begin to feel compassion for The Bad Doctor, and ask what is the dividing line between patient and provider?

Wry, comic, graphic, from the humdrum to the tragic, his patients' stories are the spokes that make Iwan's wheels go round, as all humanity, it seems, passes through his surgery door.

Ian Williams is the author of Sick Notes, a weekly comic strip in The Guardian about the state of the NHS. The Bad Doctor was highly commended in the Primary Healthcare category of the British Medical Association Medical Books Awards 2015. His latest graphic novel, The Lady Doctor, was published by Myriad in January 2019.

Contenu

IAN WILLIAMS is a comics artist, physician, printmaker and writer. He founded the website GraphicMedicine.org, coining the popular term that describes the interaction between comics and healthcare. He began to publish his own strips in 2007, using the nom de plume Thom Ferrier to maintain some anonymity while working in a rural general practice in Wales. Born…