Letters to a Young Doctor: Exploring and Surviving and Career in Medicine

Part manual and part manifesto, Letters to a Young Doctor is a timely and passionate book to help future medical students and young doctors navigate and survive medical education and practice, presenting an unvarnished depiction of the profession as it is today and the challenges it faces.


‘A brilliant and impassioned cry from the heart at the current state of medical education and practice, from the top of the profession. That it is also spiritual, wise and funny makes this book something special.’

Jesse Norman MP, Financial Secretary to the Treasury 


‘A delightful and witty account of the life of a successful surgeon, whose own warmth and empathy has clearly defined his medical practice. His plea to revisit reforms in our health service – which rely on command and control and which are destroying the values of care and compassion – is timely and powerful. Letters to a Young Doctor is both a lively guide to young doctors and also a serious message to our society about the ways in which we are seeing the de-professionalising of great professions in pursuit of distorted notions of efficiency.’

Baroness Helena Kennedy QC


‘At a time when, more than ever, we are focussed on the NHS, this is a reminder of the compassionate care that needs to be at its heart. Part polemic, part guide to a medical career, and part memoir, Letters to a Young Doctor is also very funny and written with passion, elan and fluency. Dr. Hilali Noordeen has written a book which should be prescribed reading for any budding doctor, not to mention their parents.’

Rachel Kelly, writer, mental health advocate and author of Sunday Times bestseller Black Rainbow: How Words Can Heal - My Journey Through Depression