Breaking the rules, making a difference
Lance O’Sullivan
Penguin Books, 2015
A couple of teaching staff were chatting in the secondary school staffroom… As one of them poured cups of tea, a thought struck her.
“Whatever happened to that boy, Lance O’Sullivan? I suppose he’s in jail by now?”
A third person, who had been my mum’s next-door neighbour, overheard the conversation and couldn’t resist. “Oh,” she interrupted. “Lance is at medical school.”
You could have heard a pin drop.
New Zealander of the Year, a passionate, brave free-thinker, Lance O’Sullivan is the doctor who won’t stop talking about the real causes of bad health among Maori communities: poverty, disinheritence. His own success was touch and go – his early years left him an angry young man who seemed destined for a troubled life. Connecting with his Maori heritage set him on the right path.
‘The Good Doctor by Lance O‘Sullivan is a medical biography at its best…
His story should be required reading in every New Zealand school. It’s terrific.’ – Kerre McIvor, New Zealand Woman’s Weekly.
Rae McGregor, RNZ, Nine to Noon, July 2015: “This is a book that should be read by everyone who is a health professional.”
The Good Doctor went to No 1 in the Neilsen Bestseller list in June 2015.