There are few jobs that place you on the frontiers of human existence: midwives see lives into the world, undertakers oversee their departure. In between these beginnings and endings, surgeons, doctors and nurses interact with people at varying stages of illness, and often witness people at their most vulnerable. Dublin-born Aoife Abbey is part of this cohort of people. An intensive-care doctor at University Hospital Coventry, in England, the 35-year-old will come into contact with more critically ill people in a month than most of us will in our whole lives. For almost two years, she blogged about her work experiences as the anonymous “Secret Doctor” for the British Medical Association (BMA). Abbey was the second such practising junior doctor to hold the role.

Read More