Trust him, he's a doctor

Phil Hammond's medical career started off on the same traditional trajectory as so many others. He got three A grades in his science A levels and went to Cambridge University to study medicine because “it was almost expected.”

But something happened during his clinical training at St Thomas's Hospital, London. He felt angry about medicine and all its faults, and his way of dealing with it was to “laugh in the face of adversity” and turn being angry into a second career.

“Comedy is a form of catharsis for me,” says the 40 year old genitourinary doctor--he would say he works at a “clap clinic.” His line in medical black humour has earned him praise and damnation in equal helpings. “It helps me to work out what I really think.

“You get honest feedback from an audience. If they laugh you know you've hit the nail on the head. If you die on stage and don't get a laugh, you've got live criticism there and then. On top of that, your work gets scrutinised by the media. This is completely different to medicine, where health professionals work largely in isolation: nobody scrutinises their work and they never get any feedback.”

Hammond has been giving the medical establishment …