Doctor on the boil - Richard Gordon

In Doctor on the Boil, Richard Gordon's prescription in as effervescent and hilariously stimulating as ever.The work-shy Dr Grimsdyke is still at St Swithan's - the same as ever despite the world having moved on around him. Nurses are hitching up their skirts in the name of fashion and the dean is almost certain he is to be knighted. And then a Rolls Royce pulls up at the hospital gates. In it is Sir Lancelot Spratt. Bored with retirement he has returned to invoke a clause in St Swithan's original charter and resume his work - to the great dismay of just about everyone.

Richard Gordon is best-known for his hilarious 'Doctor' books and the long-running television series they inspired. Born in 1921, he qualified as a doctor and went on to work as an anaesthetist at the famous St Bartholomew's Hospital, before a spell as a ship's surgeon and then as assistant editor of the British Medical Journal.In 1952, he left medical practice to take up writing full time and embarked upon the 'Doctor' series. Many of these are based on his experiences in the medical profession and are told with the rye wit and candid humour that have become his hallmark. They have proved enduringly successful and have been adapted into both film and TV. His 'Great Medical Mysteries' and 'Great Medical Discoveries' concern the stranger aspects of the medical profession, whilst 'The Private Life' series takes a deeper look at individual figures within their specific medical and historical setting. Clearly an incredibly versatile writer, Gordon will, however, always be best known for his comic tone coupled with remarkable powers of observation inherent in the hilarious 'Doctor' series.'Mr Gordon is in his way the P G Wodehouse of the general hospitals' - The Daily Telegraph.'I wish some more solemn novelists had half Mr Gordon's professional skills' - Julian Symonds - Sunday Times

Mr Gordon is in his way the P G Wodehouse of the general hospitals.
The Daily Telegraph