Addenbrooke’s doctor John Firth writes first novel
Kind & Sensible is a contemporary novel by Dr John Firth, a consultant physician at Addenbrooke’s, that looks at the erosion of trust between patients and doctors, advocating for candid dialogue to improve end-of-life care.
The novel’s main protagonist is Jonathan Barber, an old-school doctor who struggles with the changes within modern care.
He faces adversity when his decision to provide comfort to a terminally ill patient sparks a court case and disciplinary action, subsequently leading to his early retirement.
Speaking to the Cambridge Independent from his office at Addenbrooke’s (he has worked in Cambridge since 1996), John says: “I spend about 60 per cent of my time being a kidney doctor, and about 40 per cent of my time helping to run Addenbrooke’s, where I’m one of the deputy medical directors.”
With so many professional responsibilities, how did John, who qualified as a doctor in 1981, ever find time to write a novel?
“Well I like writing things, and for many years I’ve written and edited medical textbooks,” he explains, “and the best-known of those is a thing called the Oxford Textbook of Medicine, which is a standard medical reference work which I’ve edited for the last 20 years.
“But I thought it would be interesting to have a bash at doing something different, and so just under three years ago I decided that I’d write a novel, to get into a discussion about some things that aren’t discussed as often as they might be...
“In terms of the time, I think it probably took me about an average of four hours a week over 18 months to write it. I did it in the evenings, at weekends…
“I don’t like sitting around doing nothing so I thought I might as well sit down and write something.”
John is quick to point out that the novel’s central character, Dr Jonathan Barber, and the experience he goes through, are not based on anything that’s happened to him personally, or to any other doctor he knows.
“As the deputy medical director at Addenbrooke’s, my particular brief is professional governance – I’m what’s called the responsible officer for the trust,” he notes.
“So that means the person who links with the GMC, or deals with things if there are matters about professional behaviour of doctors.
“It’s like being the deputy headmaster; if it was a school, it was the deputy headmaster that normally dealt with the serious disciplinary things – so that is one of my roles here in Cambridge.
“So I know the way that the systems work, in terms of if people raise concerns about doctors. I know how the General Medical Council works because I often am involved in dealing with them.
“I know how the processes for the complaints are handled within the hospital and how disciplinary processes and employment tribunals work.
“So in terms of telling the story of Jonathan Barber and why he got into difficulties, it’s obviously based on a knowledge of exactly how these things work.
“But it’s not the case that I’m thinking of Jonathan Barber as a particular doctor that I know or have dealt with.
“I think it would be wrong to have made any of the characters here firmly based on particular individuals that I know.”
John says the reaction of people who have read advanced copies of the book has been “very positive”.
“In terms of getting, if you like, external views on it, I gave it to a few people to read,” he observes. “My wife, she’s a professor of genetics here at Addenbrooke’s, so she knows about medicine…
“One of my friends, who runs a publishing business but dealing with educational texts, he’s read it. And a friend of mine who’s a doctor in Oxford, who has herself written non-medical books, she’s read it.
“They’re all people that if they didn’t think it was any good, they would have found a way of saying that without being rude.
“But they all thought it was good and thought it was worth reading and therefore trying to get published.”
Kind & Sensible is due to be published, by The Book Guild Ltd, on 28 January.
So far, Waterstones in Cambridge have said it will stock the book and it will also be available online.