Speaking uncomfortable truths to the world: A critical role for a medical writer by Dr Rachel Clarke – In-Person

Dr Rachel Clarke is an NHS palliative care doctor and the author of three Sunday Times bestselling non-fiction books about medicine. Breath taking (2021) reveals how she and her colleagues confronted COVID-19 during the pandemic’s first wave in 2020. Dear Life(2020), depicting her work in an NHS hospice, was shortlisted for the 2020 Costa Biography Award, long-listed for the 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize and chosen as a BBC Radio4 Book of the Week. Your Life in My Hands (2017) documents life as a junior doctor.
Before going to medical school, Rachel was a broadcast journalist. She produced and directed current affairs documentaries focusing on subjects such as Al Qaeda, the Iraq War and the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Rachel continues to write for a wide range of publications such as the Guardian, Sunday Times, New Statesman, BMJ and Lancet.
Inspired by visiting a hospice in Ukraine during the conflict in late 2022, Rachel founded the UK registered charity, Hospice Ukraine, which supports the work of local palliative care teams across Ukraine.