Iona Heath in conversation with Gavin Francis

Retired GP and past president of the Royal College of General practitioners Dr Iona Heath talks about the impact on her working life of the Booker Prize-winning novelist and critic John Berger.

Heath has contributed to the My Reading series of books that explain why readers care about favourite authors and books. She has been reading Berger’s works for more than 50 years and corresponded with him for 20 years. Heath says she first read Berger’s A Fortunate Man as an undergraduate and it helped to teach her how to look and how to listen to patients. Through her correspondence with Berger, she says she was able to gain deeper levels of understanding and insight and is convinced this made her a better doctor.

Heath was an inner-city GP for 35 years. She has written regularly for the British Medical Journal and has contributed to many other medical journals. Here she talks to physician and writer Dr Gavin Francis, who has also contributed to the My Reading series with his appreciation of the 17th-century physician, wordsmith and polymath, Sir Thomas Browne.