Jean O'Hara

Jean O'Hara is now a prominent psychiatrist in London, but she grew up in a humble tenement flat in Hong Kong in the 1960s, the daughter of an Anglo- Burmese librarian (later a senior civil servant) and his Chinese wife. Her childhood was a simple one, sleeping on a straw mat in a tiny bedroom which she at first shared with both her grandmother and sister. As Jean grew up she developed a fascination for medicine and moved to the UK to attend medical school, eventually becoming a consultant psychiatrist. This book is her account of a childhood steeped in the culture of China, and first steps in a career in medicine. Central to the story is the character of Jean's Chinese grandmother, a charismatic matriarch who gave her a rich understanding of Chinese culture and an oriental outlook which has never left her.

What you are about to read is a powerful little book, a pamphlet, really, a rant in actuality, laced with anger, bitter disappointment, vengeance and righteousness, yet remarkably courageous and candid for its time and subject, and clearly empowering to its extraordinary author, one Jean O'Hara, the notorious Honolulu Harlot.

People with intellectual disability often have health needs that go unrecognised and untreated; this may be because of difficulties in communication, diagnostic overshadowing, discrimination or indifference. There is concern that public health measures aimed at reducing the main health killers in the population will not address these issues for people with intellectual disability and may preferentially widen the inequality that already exists. This book is a comprehensive and systematic review of physical and mental health co-morbidities in people with intellectual disability. Such an evidence base is vital in shaping public health policy, healthcare commissioning and the development of more effective healthcare systems, as well as supporting better understanding and practice at an individual clinical level. This is essential reading for policy makers and commissioners of services, as well as individual practitioners across mainstream and specialist health and social care, in considering not only service developments but practice at the coalface.