Jonathan Waxman, Professor of Oncology at Imperial College London and consultant physician at the Hammersmith Hospital, is a world expert on prostate cancer.  He is also an author of fiction, something that is more common amongst the medical fraternity than  often known.  A J Cronin and Somerset Maugham feature in this list, and Christopher Isherwood also went to medical school. 

Professor Waxman’s first attempt as an author was fiction, but his second foray ‘The Elephant in the Room’ is one of few books published from the doctor’s point of view on cancer and its management. It also helps us to understand the complexity of medicine in a different light, individual skill and raw emotion perpetuated in difficult situations.   Sometimes the human aspect and the depth of skill necessary can get diluted or lost amongst the plethora of medical dramas that have flooded our television screens, and the romanticised images they create.  We forget that doctors are only human and yet we often expect superhuman clinical and communication ability.

Originally Professor Waxman was going to co-author a book with J G Ballard, his patient and friend, entitled ‘Conversations with my Physician: the Meaning, if Any, of Life’ but sadly Ballard became too ill for this to happen.   The book he decided to write himself “for the love of a great man” evolved into The Elephant in the Room:  Stories about Cancer patients and their doctors.

Whilst there are a number of publications charting individual suffering and dealing with grief, it can be helpful  for both the aspiring medical student and the layman, to understand the management of illness and patient from the doctor’s perspective.  The Elephant in the Room combines pathos with some light hearted moments that engage the reader, and yet helps to put into perspective the extraordinary role that doctors play in the everyday minutiae of real life and death situations.