“You’re going to do what?” His wife’s startled question says it all. But when Dr. Ken Walker (W. Gifford-Jones) sat down to write a book, neither he nor his wife foresaw the problems that lay ahead. Ken Walker has been hotel doctor, ship’s surgeon, family physician, surgical specialist, syndicated medical journalist, and maverick. For 25 years his weekly newspaper column has reached five million readers in Canada. And his common-sensical, folksy style has endeared him to many. But few people know the price he’s paid for refusing to sit on the fence about controversial social issues. This book tells what it’s like to be a syndicated medical journalist. How it’s been the best and the worst of times. How the experience has shaped his thinking on the grave problems facing patients and society. It’s the inside story of his battle against huge odds to legalize heroin to ease the agony of terminal cancer pain. The toll it took on his family when he decided to perform legal abortions. How renowned organizations sometimes distort the truth. Clark Davey, former managing editor of the Globe and Mail, warned Ken Walker that life would never be the same once he started writing a newspaper column. It never has been.

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Dr. W. Gifford-Jones is the pseudonym of Ken Walker, a Toronto-based gynecologist and author. His previous book with ECW, The Healthy Barmaid, is a bestseller.