Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.
At first I thought it was going to be another in this non-fiction type where the author spends our reading time telling us about statistics and successive government's failures but I stuck with it and I am so glad I did. What a gentle eye-opener. Written not to shock but to educate and explain some of the unknown or hidden horrors of the UK prison system. Thank you, for we should all know at least some of the truths which are so often hidden from the masses on 'the out'.
Well done Dr Y.

Dr Y is a GP in a prison. We accompany him as he’s thrown in the deep end and learns the meaning of some horrific jargon.
With him as the guide, you get a very real sense of what prison is like, and how it dehumanises inmates.
Dr Y is completely sincere and manages to turn around some of his patients through his active listening and compassion.
He is also very candid about the effect of the system on him: the exhaustion of working in a system with inadequate resources, the fear for his own safety, the personal toll as the work dredges up painful memories of losing his father.
We also hear about the closeness of the members of the heathcare team and how important this is.
Recommended: a rare insight into a brutalising and brutal system that most of us will thankfully never experience, and a reminder that kindness and care can achieve so much.

Stitched Up provides a rare and uncensored glimpse into life into UK prisons. Dr Shahed Yousaf oozes empathy and has a really great sense of humour. I really enjoyed reading this book and I will recommending to friends.

A caged animal would not be held in these conditions. And yet here we are."

What an incredibly insightful book. I enjoyed Dr Yousaf's perspective thoroughly and his dry humour was spectacular.

I've been listening to a lot of true crime podcasts lately and wondered what the healthcare in prisons must be like - so while this novel was out of my usual genre, I absolutely loved it. You get behind-the-scenes of prisons systems, hierarchy, in-depth injuries that need attending and witness some very special, heartwarming relationships forming.

Reading this book felt like having an intellectual conversation with an old friend. His dry humor made me laugh out loud, while his descriptions of some of the injuries made my stomach turn upside down. I loved his observations of people with his witty responses and thoughts.

The only downside to me was that there was quite a bit of repetition throughout, but it can easily be overlooked and be viewed as emphasis instead.

"My first name is spelled phonetically and is just two syllables Shah-hed. It translates from the Arabic for ‘witness’."

Told from the inside out, this is a harrowing, humorous and hard-hitting tale of life behind bars by a prison doctor who has seen it all. Literally. I was immediately hooked. A fast paced, effortlessly quick read where the pages just turned themselves and I was engaged throughout. Wonderful writing and very entertaining stories.

This book was one of the better written in its genre. The usual way is to give too much information about their personal life or use the book to make a political point. However, Dr Y as he is known throughout the book manages to capture what it is like to work within the prison service. I liked the way he talked about the prisoners who he dealt with. He was honest about how they made him feel. For example to start with he was very scared, repulsed and overwhelmed. He always stuck to his principles and always did the best he could. I would definitely recommend it.

Having worked in prisons (although not in the healthcare dept) I was interested in reading the authors experiences. I think they were able to accurately capture the compelxity of the client group, and the system and it was interesting to hear about their successes but also the human sadness that is also very much present in the CJS. There is lots of 'explaining' of the prison system which I think is important for those not familiar.

Thanks to NetGALLEY for the e-ARC. This was a well written and fascinating account of world few will experience but that affects the whole world. Yousaf writes with compassion and clarity. Great book!

I love true crime but I never read anything that is non fiction about prison life/imjurys and so forth, so this was an interesting read but it was also brutal and raw and completely believeable in their entirety.
As brutal as it was it was also funny at times which I was suprised about and some of the characters - for want of a better word - that I was introduced too were suprising in so many different ways. A really enjoyable read that I would recommend

Dr Y portrays life within the UK prisons with some of the most perfectly harrowing, mind boggling and almost totally unbelievable examples. Having worked within the prisons for over a decade, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and re-immersing myself into institutional life. Scarier still is that the stories captured within this are unlikely to be embellished in any way. You can’t quite understand what it’s like to work in prisons until you do work in there however this is a very good attempt to capture it. Definitely worth a read for the curious.

Told from the inside out, this is a harrowing, humorous and hard-hitting tale of life behind bars by a prison doctor who has seen it all. Literally.

Dr Shahed Yousaf spends his time running between emergencies - from overdoses to assaults, from cell fires to suicides - with one hand perpetually hovering over the panic button. Being a prison doctor is not for the faint-hearted. 

An outsider on the inside, in Stitched Up he introduces us to a cast of unforgettable characters, including killers, con men and auto-cannibals. To Dr Yousaf, they are patients first and prisoners second - because any one of us could end up on the wrong side of the law.

“Stitched Up” by Dr Shahed Yousaf is a treat. It’s the kind of book I would shelf under ‘guilty pleasures’. I’m a naturally curious person and breaking that down, nosy. I want to know what goes on in places that the public isn’t ordinarily granted access to. So these type of books give me that opportunity and I eat them up! I was attracted to this book as being a prison doctor, I would imagine, is an interesting concept. A person who’s career is based on helping sick people is working in an environment that contains people who’s acts have involved hurting other people and in some cases, taking their life. So it’s interesting to read the first hand perspective of a genuinely altruistic person, who has to work in an environment where altruism is a rare commodity. Because irrespective of the doctor’s personal views of his patient, he is committed to helping them. A very absorbing and witty read.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an arc in exchange for an unbiased review.