Dr. Rachel Clarke

Rachel is a hospital-based National Health Service (NHS) palliative care doctor in the United Kingdom (UK) and the author of three Sunday Times bestselling non-fiction books. Dear Life (2020) depicting her work in an NHS hospice, was shortlisted for the 2020 Costa Biography Award, longlisted for the 2020 Baillie Gifford Prize, and chosen as a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. In addition, Breathtaking was developed into a television drama with ITV. Her forthcoming book The Story of a Heart will be published in Autumn 2024. Before going to medical school, Rachel was a broadcast journalist, producing and directing current affairs documentaries on subjects such as the Iraq War and the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She continues to write for many publications including the Guardian, Sunday Times, Lancet and The British Medical Journal. She makes regular television and radio appearances. Recently, Rachel visited Ukraine to teach palliative medicine to doctors and medical students there. She is setting up a new charity, Hospice Ukraine, to support the work of palliative care teams across the country. She cares deeply about helping patients live the end of their lives as fully and richly as possible, and believes in the power of human stories to build empathy and inspire change.