Medical students meet best-selling author, comedian and NHS psychiatrist, Dr Benji Waterhouse

It’s not every day you get to meet a best-selling author, comedian and NHS psychiatrist. 

But that’s exactly what the Medicine with Foundation Year students at the University of Leicester got to do last week (9 May) ahead of the Leicester leg of Dr Benji Waterhouse’s book tour show.

Benji treated the group of around 30 students to a sneaky peak of what his audiences had in store.

Thanks to a collaboration with the English department at the University, students on the course have been studying his book, ‘You don’t have To Be Mad to Work Here’, about the world of psychiatry - a place still inhabited by Benji, albeit on a part-time basis these days.

Through some dark level humour and empathy, the reader is plunged into an authentic and fascinating tale of life in a psych ward, where the stakes are high and decisions can literally be a matter of life or death.

Benji hopes it will raise the profile of mental health, where he quipped to students, it’s easier to get a ticket to Glastonbury than it is to see an actual psychiatrist. 

His humour puts the spotlight on all that is good, bad and ugly about the profession, while never seeking to deride it and includes his own mental health decline. Humour, he told the students, is a coping mechanism. 

And while the latter is undoubtedly littered throughout the book, Dr Waterhouse never makes the patient the butt of the joke, rather it’s the system, as ever, that’s at fault. 

“Having time to reflect,” he told the students is essential for maintaining patient empathy. 

Dr Rachel Winter, Associate Professor in Medical Education and Empathic Healthcare at the University’s Stoneygate Centre for Empathic Healthcare, helped organise the event for students.

She said: “It’s great to have Benji come to Leicester. His book is so accessible and his humour means he’s extremely engaging. We decided that it would be great to introduce a book club to the Medicine with Foundation Year course and Benji’s book was the first we chose to look at. 

“It’s deeply thoughtful and gives a real insight into psychiatry, as well as highlighting how important empathy is in medicine. Who better than a practising psychiatrist to come and talk to them?!”

Speaking afterwards, student Kaitlin Riddle, 20, said she had thoroughly enjoyed reading the book.

“It’s insightful and very honest and it explores the reasons why empathy can sometimes be lacking within the profession. It’s definitely made me re-evaluate how I treat my patients.”

Fellow student Niamh Dillon, 19, added: “It’s really opened my eyes into mental health. It’s very different to what I thought it would be. I think I’d made a lot of presumptions previously so I appreciate this honest account and it’s been great to hear him talk.”