Vital Signs

An insight into what it's like to be a first year junior doctor - the ups and downs, the drama and how terrifying it is to finally be making decisions.

Diagnosis and death; uncertainty and urgent laxatives; sleep deprivation and synthetic drawstring trousers: this debut work by Izzy Lomax-Sawyers chronicles her first year as a tired junior doctor at Auckland's Middlemore Hospital.

How can I be a thorough and compassionate doctor while still leaving work before 7pm? How do I uphold dignity and autonomy for people whose liberty has been taken because of severe mental illness? How will I know when what we can do for a critically ill patient is different from what we should do? Is this floor clean enough to sleep on?

Izzy grapples with these questions and more as she rotates through psychiatry, orthopaedics, medicine and surgery.

Thoughtful, funny, and at times heart-breaking, this book invites readers to join Izzy through the highs and lows of being an apprentice in...