Back to cover page

Chris Ward and Simon Eccles provide an excellent offering of possible career choices in medicine in their long awaited book So You Want To Be A Brain Surgeon? A Medical Careers Guide . It is the most up to date, detailed and comprehensive vocational guide for medical students and junior doctors.

The text is easy to read and well laid out with a general format of a two page spread being devoted to any one specialty, after a short introduction to each section. The first page summarises the nature and expectations of the career in question including professional exams, recent advances, and employment prospects. The second page methodically lists a host of information about the job (with the aid of clever pictographs), and includes on call commitments, the percentage of women, degree of competitiveness, and the range of incomes.

The book is sensitively written throughout, and intelligently dispels the stereotypes which are attached to the various specialties. Firstly, it quotes the "myth", which may induce a smirk, and then subtly overrides this by writing about the trenchant reality of the post concerned. Readers will certainly enjoy the mixture of writing styles of the two authors which, in combination, when give a full frontal picture of each possible career choice.

As the number of medical specialties continues to expand, this book is a must for anyone in medicine who is unsure about which career path to pursue. Even the 19 year old single minded preclinical cardiothoracic surgeons to be, for example, may be surprised to discover that there are possibilities that they may not be aware of. The sections on medical ethics, clinical psychology and civil service medicine are just a few of the enlightening eye openers. Potential collaborations with physiotherapy, dentistry, alternative medicine, and law are mentioned too.

In general, medical career guides are a rare breed, and although there are many books which tell you how to actually get into medical school, and some which are centred around analysing doctors and their careers, such as Any Room at the Top? A Study of Doctors and their Careers, Isobel Allen (ISBN 0-85374-438-6) it is difficult to find books that are useful as guides for medics themselves. One which predates Chris Ward and Simon Eccles' book is called Living Medicine - Planning a Career and Choosing A Specialty (ISBN 0-521-38628-4), 1990. By comparison, this book by Peter Richards, is a more laborious read owing to its more conventional read straight through layout, and also because the author tries to pack everything into quite a strange amalgam. Anecdotes and quotes from the good and the great (mainly distinguished doctors and erudite political commentators), form a fair portion of the text, combined with passages of wordy factual information. Scattered statistics and snippets of medicopolitical history form the rest of it, most of it written in the style of a tale. The book's narrative feel is partly due to the fact that it is written chronologically (starting with finals), and the style is such that it feels like you are listening to Professor Richards himself guiding you personally through possibilities in medicine, but pausing now and again to digress as he thinks of days gone by. At one point he even mentions his own father's medical career.

The text is imposing rather than easy to read, and although interesting an informative, it is not clearly written. Rather than being a user friendly book for quick reference it is a thorough one which makes you ponder, often requiring a fair amount of concentration. Occasionally, it is like reading a textbook. To its credit, however, little is omitted. Marriage, stresses and strains, failing exams, even a copy of the Hippocratic oath - it's all in there somewhere, albeit in a somewhat long winded manner. For those who do not like a heavy read there is frequent temptation to "cut to the chase" only to find that there isn't one. The cartoon illustrations by the eminent David Langdon are great, and serve to lighten the book's tone, even if they do appear a little trite beside the text. In addition, parts are in need of updating.

The NHS Women's Unit (part of the NHS Executive), published a guide in 1995 for medical undergraduates called Making Your Career in Medicine ,* copies of which can usually be found still in their cardboard packaging in most student union offices, or in the clutches of your medical school careers officer. This 68 page pamphlet consists of a varied collection of medical biographies (15 in all), intended to "provide both inspiration and practical guidance." It is not a comprehensive career guide owing to its exclusive choice of profiles, but each biography encompasses most aspects of doctors' lives, from the personal to the professional, and this puts the careers in question into a more tangible perspective. It also contains some interesting exercises to help you focus in on your strengths. It is worth acquiring one and won't cost you a penny.

Nevertheless, So You Want To Be A Brain Surgeon? A Medical Careers Guide comes out on top as the best all rounder, bearing in mind that the three publications are intended to be informative and cater for different readers' tastes. In addition to its synopsis of some 80 careers, the book is also full of useful addresses and telephone numbers of various professional bodies (and not just in medicine), making it invaluable for ready reference - (just think of all those 192 calls you could save). Besides, being priced at £12.95 it is unlikely to leave a hole in your pocket; for a book that will help to shape your entire future it costs less than a night out.