Life in the Balance

Author Jim Down
Narrator Jim Down
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Run Time 8 hours and 8 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Accident and emergency medicine, Autobiography: science, technology and medicine, Health systems and services.

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

'If Jim Down is as good a doctor as he is a writer, I'd definitely want him treating me' -
John O'Farrell, author and scriptwriter

A frank and unflinching account of intensive care medicine

In these stories, Dr Jim Down brings us to the very heart of the intensive care unit - the section of the hospital where the sickest patients are brought to be cared for until their condition improves. With honesty, humility and a streak of dark humour, Dr Down describes the quietly heroic work of doctors and nurses on the ICU, a place which sits at the cutting edge of medical technology and where a split-second decision can make the difference between life and death.

From headline-grabbing cases like that of Alexander Litvinenko, poisoned by Russian agents and admitted to Down's ward, to the appalling aftermath of a train crash, Life in the Balance offers an inside glimpse of intensive care medicine, its immense challenges, deleterious effects on doctors' mental health and enormous rewards. Its profundity will make you reconsider the fragility of life and reframe your understanding of what it means to care.

©2023 Jim Down (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

A remarkably honest memoir of a life spent pulling people back from death

author of This is Going to Hurt

[Jim] describes with unflinching honesty the toll that working in intensive care can take on his own mental health

Jim Down is as remarkable a writer as he is a doctor. If I’m ever in ICU I hope he’s my consultant

Medical Editor, BBC

Whether treating famous Russian spies, the victims of terrorist attacks, or people taken close to death by Covid, he shows us what it’s really like to care for those who are clinging to life, and describes with unflinching honesty the toll that working in intensive care can take on his own mental health

Alastair Campbell

Spies, terror, personal crisis, resolution and redemption; Life in the Balance really has it all … a hilarious, beautiful book, I was sincerely moved

Dr Chris van Tulleken

Beautifully written, witty and heartbreaking

Olivia Colman

If Jim Down is as good a doctor as he is a writer, I’d definitely want him treating me.

John O'Farrell

Transport yourself into the angst ridden, terrifying, and at times hilarious world of the trainee doctor of the 1990s. A cross between This is Going to Hurt and Do No Harm … highly recommended!

author of Why We Eat too Much

Jim’s book is different. His ear is attuned, and his recounting conversations makes me live his scenes. And he made me think, weep and smile. He’s a smart, wise and kind doctor in real life, and these characteristics shine through. Whoever you are, you should read this book. One in five of you will, at some point, need a Jim

Professor of Intensive Care Medicine, University College London

Life in the Balance brims with the wonder, trauma and magic of medicine. Jim Down is a consummate storyteller whose tales of life and death in the ICU are riveting. I loved this book!

author of Breathtaking

A beautifully written, brutally honest account of what life spent as an ICU doctor is like, how it feels and what it costs

Dr Kevin Fong

Medical students should read this. Young doctors should read this. Patients should read this. Having read it, I have no idea how Dr Down found the time to write it!

Sir Richard Stilgoe

Jim Down is as remarkable a writer as he is a doctor. It is like being by the patient’s bedside in critical care, but more than that you are inside Jim’s head as he struggles with ethical as well as medical dilemmas. What comes across most strongly is his humanity. If I’m ever in ICU I hope he’s my consultant

Medical Editor, BBC

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