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It was a shame this book wasn't as good as her previous two. Her stories from inside prison were really interesting usually but maybe because of the type of prison it was, it just didn't make for as an interesting or detailed book. Content warning: contains graphic references to self harm, suicide, and sexual, physical, and emotional abuse. Despite the brutal, raw and depressing things I’ve seen, my job isextremely rewarding in a way that I have never found before.
So upset to read of the author's own circumstance around this book. Understandable why this is the final book but so disappointed. Brown admits that the closer she has become to her patients, the less kindly disposed she has felt towards former friends. She swears more. She has less patience at social events and finds it harder than ever to tolerate social bragging. “I don’t really go to parties any more – no one invites me!” she says. “My husband would say I’ve become more assertive. I see people who have absolutely nothing. My eyes have been opened and it puts a different perspective on conversations that start with, ‘So what are your boys doing now?’ I hope this book can be a voice for the prisoners.” Finally, the paramount lesson I learned from this book is about suspending judgement. While we would expect prisoners to be toughened, burly thugs, the truth is that most of them are not. Many of them enter the confines of the prison afraid; many of them have been the victims of abuse themselves. Some are orphans, some have been brought up in broken families. Some were homeless, some became hooked on drugs just to numb the pain of reality. All of them have a story to tell, most of which are turbocharged with emotion and agony. I found it really stilted and repetitive - and it's not a long book by any means. All the characters speak with the same voice and none of them sounds authentic to the characters or the stories as she presents them. I didn't expect to love this as much as I did, but I've always had an interest in prisons, which began I'd left school. I had a strong desire to become a social worker, and would be based working in a prison, enabling me to work with the other prison staff, and the prisoners themselves. This never happened because life happened and things change, but I always ponder about the what if?
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Huntercombe was like a “holiday camp” compared to Brown’s next placement, as duty doctor at Wormwood Scrubs, the notorious prison which holds more than 1,200 male inmates. Here, consultations took place with Brown seated closest to the open door and an alarm close to hand. Shortly before she arrived, a nurse had been taken hostage by a prisoner. On the segregation wing, she saw patients through a hatch – sometimes to be met instead by a stream of abuse, saliva, or worse. “One of the challenging things was never knowing what might be waiting on the other side of the door.”
Working in prisons has changed my perspective on life and made me appreciate the simple things that bring happiness even more. As she told me her story, she rolled up her jeans to show me at least 20 small circular scars from cigarette burns inflicted by her abuser.
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Dr. Brown writes about her work as a prison GP and makes some very intelligent points. However I found the style both too gossipy and too cloying, the focus on sad story after story of female criminal forced into committing a crime due to factors supposedly out with their control, and how heartwarming it was to make a difference, all a bit too much for my tastes. Statistics show that forty eight percent of female prisoners have committed an offence to support someone else’s drug use compared with twenty two percent of male prisoners” One of the main feelings I got while reading this was the large amount of compassion Dr Amanda Brown has for her patients, and the sometimes truly awful situations that have led to them being in prison. We follow Brown as she leaves her job as a community GP to working in a young offender’s institute, then a men’s prison and finally a women’s prison. Every job is varied, fast paced and harrowing, but it’s her time within the women’s prison that stands out the most. These women she treats are often so institutionalised that they feel safer within the prison walls, constantly reoffending to remain inside because it’s better than a life spent on the streets, wrapped up in prostitution or domestic abuse. There’s one particular woman who’s so ashamed of an ulcer on her leg because of the smell that she wraps it in sanitary towels rather than go to the doctor for help. She’s become so use to thinking that she’s worthless that she doesn’t see herself as worthy of help. That made me so sad to think that really, a lot of these women just need someone to talk to. And that’s what Dr Brown does. She listens, never judges, as her eyes are opened to this new world. Once again Dr Amanda Brown has done an amazing job at showing the harsh reality, and some of the wonderful moments, of being a prison doctor. Great insight, and wonderfully written, as always. In this eye-opening, inspirational memoir, Amanda reveals the stories, the patients and the cases that have shaped a career helping those most of us would rather forget.
Never heard a more false statement. The UK’s justice system is as corrupt as they come. Use Encrochat for a prime example of where the law is being broken to uphold the law. Despite the brutal, raw and depressing things I’ve seen, my job isextremely rewarding in a way that I have never found before (Picture: Harper Collins) The ‘normal rules’ as you say are points of law and the Home Office doesn’t make a habit of breaking the law!”
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Success is measured in small doses, first at the young offenders institution where she embarks on this new phase of her life, to working in Wormwood Scrubs and finally, HMP Bronzefield, the women’s prison which replaced the better known, Holloway. Many of the women just want someone to talk to, someone who will listen, understand and care about them. Danger. Deportation. Death. These are just some of the fates facing the inmates at Huntercombe prison. This book is so fascinating. I liked reading about the different cases that Dr Brown described. What I didn't realize about this book before reading it is how incredibly heartbreaking it was going to be. In general, physical health issues in prison are the same as in the community, however dealing with them can be very challenging – particularly if anyone needs to attend a hospital appointment for specialist advice or investigations.
For the first five years of my career as a prison doctor, I worked with 15 to 18-year-olds, before heading to Wormwood Scrubs, a category B men’s prison. Currently, I work in HMP Bronzefield, the largest female prison in Europe. Over the seven years Brown spent at Scrubs, she felt increasingly at ease and involved with the prisoners’ lives. When a young man who spoke no English arrived in a wheelchair because he’d jumped from a window fleeing police and his shattered legs had both been amputated, she cried. “I cry a lot and it’s embarrassing, but the day I lose my compassion is the day I stop working”. When a violent prisoner from the segregation ward presented her with an intricate miniature racing car he’d carved from a bar of soap – in thanks for “being kind and not judging” – she floated home on a high. A woman told me that prison was the only place she’d felt safe But this has also been an exciting challenge and through the years, I’ve witnessed a fascinating mix of humanity. Amanda Brown has written three prison books, the others being The Prison Doctor and The Prison Doctor: The Final Sentence. This one is by far the best. She did not seem to regard the women prisoners as anything but women who had through circumstances had lives that put them, eventually, in prison, and were potential friends. The other two books, about men, they seem to have remained prisoners and people she treated in a friendly, caring way, but there was not, or at least she didn't convey it, such a real connection with them, as there were with prisoners in this book. It is a truly eye-opening book about life in prison, however. My heart goes out to all those women who have come from a broken home of abuse and hatred. This book was a rollercoaster of emotions as I learnt how there are actually a lot of positives about prison life. The people there are helped with drug problems and given a job and education. I never had previously thought of prison life like that.
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In true Prison Doctor style Dr Amanda Brown tells heartbreaking stories with warmth and compassion of her time spent working with prisoners whose fate of deportation hangs in the balance.
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