Summary:
How not to be a Doctor offers a selection of fifty essays that have been published over the past few years by John Launer, a well known medical columnist and commentator on medicine and its relation to the arts, humanities and philosophy. The essays cover a wide range of topics including music, poetry, literature and psychoanalysis as well as contemporary medical politics and (most of all) the poignant personal experience of being a doctor.

The book is aimed to appeal to any doctor or medical student who believes that medicine is about more then ticking boxes, and that you cannot separate personal experiences from professional ones.

Combining literacy and erudition with humour, directness and a human touch, these essays will be a delight to read for the medical professional and the lay reader alike.

• An easy to dip in and out of book

• Echoes the experiences of being a doctor, with appropriate criticism of the health services and things Doctors say and do in an amusing yet serious manner

• Writing style is very concise as each essay is only two pages, so easy to fit reading in with other commitments

• Amusing, but with very true and important messages in each essay

• The selection of subjects covered is diverse: medical eduation, general practice and psychotherapy, but this book is more broadly about being a doctor than any specific specialty so appeals to Doctors across the board

Table of Contents:
1. Stress test
2. Of cheese and choice
3. The wrong trousers
4. Darwin’s dangerous idea
5. Personal services
6. How not to be a doctor
7. Modern medicine
8. Plus ça change …
9. Anna O and the ‘talking cure’
10. Breaking the news
11. Cultural nepotism
12. Doing the rounds
13. The descent of man
14. The condition of music
15. The professor of cheese
16. What’s in a name?
17. A house divided
18. Seeing double
19. The art of questioning
20. Rhythms of life
21. Interpreting illness
22. Close encounters
23. All doctors are liars
24. Mentioned in passing
25. The National Illness Service
26. All Greek to me
27. It takes two
28. Welsh blood
29. Uniqueness and conformity
30. The refugee’s tale
31. Folk illness and medical models
32. Minding the body
33. Escaping the loop
34. Dr Scrooge’s casebook
35. Yellow nose sign
36. The itch
37. Impaled on the invisible
38. Fathers and sons
39. The medics of Myddfai
40. Let’s talk about sex
41. Dialogue and diagnosis
42. Bigger picture, lighter touch
43. Diaspora and coincidence
44. Careers advice
45. Mysteries of the male
46. Crusades and mirages
47. Weasel words
48. The enduring asylum
49. Do not disturb
50. Burning your relatives

About the Author(s):

John Launer, Tavistock Clinic, London and London Department of Postgraduate Medical Education

John Launer is a medical educator known nationally for his work in consultation skills, clinical supervision and narrative based medicine. He is one of the best known columnists in the British medical press and has contributed columns and articles to many periodical and journals for over twenty years. He works as both a GP and a consultant and therefore has a unique view of medicine and the health service.

Readership:
Medical professionals, including doctors and medical students, and the lay reader

Reviews: