The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat

Which author would you love to have dinner with?

For me, it would 100% be Oliver Sacks.

If you don’t know who he is, then I would Google the title above. He was a neurologist who wrote books based on interesting cases he had seen.

For me, reading The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat when I was 17 was almost like an awakening.

From being a young child, I had wanted to be a doctor. More specifically, I wanted to be a psychiatrist. Everything I did was geared towards putting me on that path. I loved the brain and how ridiculously complex it was.

So when somebody recommended the book to me, of course I jumped straight in.

It is much more cognitive neuroscience than psychiatry, but somehow that interested me even more. These were often measurable events that mapped onto very specific areas of the brain.

Who knew the human body could be so fascinating?

Anyway, I was completely engrossed. I went on to read several of his other books. I was obsessed.

I even wrote him a letter.

I never received a reply.

As I said, the plan had always been to become a doctor, but I still felt like there was an itch that hadn’t quite been scratched.

Then I was offered a place on a cognitive neuroscience course for a year between the fourth and fifth years of my medical degree.

I enjoyed every second of it.

It was fascinating, engaging and exciting. I’d also made some very good friends there, and I didn’t really want it to be over.

Then I actually became a doctor.

And realised I hated it.

The ward rounds. The constant humiliation from consultants. The sexism. Fifteen years in and I still get called a nurse on an almost daily basis. The verbal abuse.

I remember thinking: I don’t want this.

I’d done a rotation in psychiatry and hoped that would be more my cup of tea.

But I was so, so, so bored.

I had already applied for a psychiatry training post and received an invitation to interview. I turned it down.

I didn’t want to do that either.

I loved neuroscience, but I also didn’t want to do medical training.

So, feeling completely lost, I started wondering what else I could do.

And that is how I ended up doing a PhD in psychology.

It was incredibly neuroscience-heavy and, guess what?

I hated that too.

I didn’t even finish it.

Five years in, I felt like I still wasn’t anywhere close to finishing.

However, throughout all of this I had been doing locum shifts in the A&E department where I’d done my foundation training. That started in 2013.

It is now 2026.

I am still there.

Because eventually, after trying psychiatry, neuroscience, psychology and a PhD, it turned out that I was an emergency physician.

And a happy one.

We’re the people who see the acute psychiatric presentations. We’re often the people who first see new neurological problems. We see strange illnesses, bizarre symptoms and patients where you genuinely have no idea what is going on until you start putting the pieces together.

It turns out that was the bit I had been looking for all along.

I genuinely can’t imagine doing anything else as my day-to-day job now.

But that doesn’t mean I’ve ever stopped being fascinated by the strange and unusual cases.

Which brings me back to Oliver Sacks.

I would love to sit down with him over dinner and get him to tell me about the patients he met, the cases that stayed with him and everything that never made it into the books.

And, after more than a decade in A&E, I reckon I could probably give him a few stories that would entertain him too.

Sadly, Oliver Sacks died in 2015, so my dream dinner will only ever be that — a dream.

But what a remarkable physician and writer he was.

I will never forget the influence he had on my life.

RIP Oliver Sacks. Thank you for the memories.

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🧳 UNPACKED

Sometimes the thing you think you’re meant to do isn’t actually where you belong.

I spent years thinking I had somehow taken the wrong turn because psychiatry wasn’t right, neuroscience wasn’t quite right and academia definitely wasn’t right.

It turns out I hadn’t taken the wrong turn at all.

I just hadn’t found A&E yet.

📦 Pack here

If there’s a book, writer, teacher or random moment that completely changed the direction of your life, don’t underestimate it.

Sometimes the things that fascinate us when we’re young stick around for a reason.