Every doctor is haunted by memories of difficult patients. People whom, despite all of their patience and persistence and the best communication, diagnostic and reasoning skills, they haven't helped. And anyone who has been a patient will tell you about encounters with difficult doctors, of relationships freighted with mutual bafflement, hostility and pain.

Despite its vast resources, medicine is so often destined to fail people. Written by a practising GP, this book is told through stories of Dr Peter Dorward's hardest cases, including his worst failures (and a few triumphs) and ranging from the everyday to the tragic, grotesque and humorous. With these stories Peter Dorward explores the philosophical problems and contradictions entangled in the practice of medicine.