Skip to main content

Main menu

  • HOME
  • ONLINE FIRST
  • CURRENT ISSUE
  • ALL ISSUES
  • AUTHORS & REVIEWERS
  • SUBSCRIBE
  • BJGP LIFE
  • MORE
    • About BJGP
    • Conference
    • Advertising
    • eLetters
    • Alerts
    • Video
    • Audio
    • Librarian information
    • Resilience
    • COVID-19 Clinical Solutions
  • RCGP
    • BJGP for RCGP members
    • BJGP Open
    • RCGP eLearning
    • InnovAIT Journal
    • Jobs and careers

User menu

  • Subscriptions
  • Alerts
  • Log in

Search

  • Advanced search
British Journal of General Practice
Intended for Healthcare Professionals
  • RCGP
    • BJGP for RCGP members
    • BJGP Open
    • RCGP eLearning
    • InnovAIT Journal
    • Jobs and careers
  • Subscriptions
  • Alerts
  • Log in
  • Follow bjgp on Twitter
  • Visit bjgp on Facebook
  • Blog
  • Listen to BJGP podcast
  • Subscribe BJGP on YouTube
Intended for Healthcare Professionals
British Journal of General Practice

Advanced Search

  • HOME
  • ONLINE FIRST
  • CURRENT ISSUE
  • ALL ISSUES
  • AUTHORS & REVIEWERS
  • SUBSCRIBE
  • BJGP LIFE
  • MORE
    • About BJGP
    • Conference
    • Advertising
    • eLetters
    • Alerts
    • Video
    • Audio
    • Librarian information
    • Resilience
    • COVID-19 Clinical Solutions
The Back Pages

Cecil Helman: GP, anthropologist, writer, poet, teacher, and internationalist

Surinder Singh and Joe Rosenthal
British Journal of General Practice 2009; 59 (567): 790. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3399/bjgp09X472782
Surinder Singh
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
Joe Rosenthal
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Article
  • Info
  • eLetters
  • PDF
Loading

Cecil Helman, London GP and internationally renowned medical anthropologist and writer has sadly died, on 15 June 2009 at the Royal Free Hospital, from complications of motor neurone disease.

Cecil was born into a medical family in South Africa in 1944 and qualified at the University of Cape Town Medical School in 1967. He left South Africa soon after and came to Britain to take up general practice and study social anthropology at University College London under Professor Mary Douglas.

He continued to work for 27 years as a GP in North London but also pursued a parallel academic career in teaching and research as Senior Lecturer at University College and Professor at Brunel University. He was known internationally as one of the foremost experts in medical anthropology, the cross-cultural study of health, illness, and medical care. His seminal textbook, Culture, Health, and Illness was first published in 1984. Now in its fifth edition it remains prominent on every GP trainee's reading list as well as those of other health professionals and students of anthropology. Not content to concentrate solely on clinical and academic pursuits he also became well known for his writing and poetry and was even known to turn his creative hand to painting.

Helman published academic papers in medical journals, including The Lancet, British Medical Journal, Annals of Internal Medicine, British Journal of General Practice, and Medical Humanities. He was honoured with several prestigious international prizes including, in 2008, the George Abercrombie Award made by the Royal College of General Practitioners for special meritorious literary work in general practice.

Perhaps Cecil Helman will be most remembered by the wider public for his recent memoir Suburban Shaman: Tales from Medicine's Frontline. This book received widespread critical acclaim, and was selected by the BBC as a ‘Book of the Week’, before being serialised on BBC Radio in March 2006. Any GP reading the book will recognise the many and varied doctor–patient interactions Cecil so eloquently describes from his own practice. The stories he tells are rich in context, challenging at times but so often amusing, powerful, and memorable. The resonance he communicates with day-to-day medical encounters can be shared by doctors and patients alike. It is a consolation to know that Cecil was working on his final book right up until the end. He submitted the manuscript for a sequel to Suburban Shaman provisionally entitled An Amazing Murmur of the Heart just days before his untimely death.

Cecil was a generous, supportive, and loyal friend to those around him. He remained always on good terms with his former wife Vetta, and was immensely proud of his daughter Zoe to whom he dedicated his many texts.

Footnotes

  • We shall be hosting a gathering in memory of Dr Cecil Helman at University College London (UCL) on the evening of 25 February 2010. For further details please contact: s.gerrard{at}pcps.ucl.ac.uk.

  • © British Journal of General Practice, 2009.
Back to top
Previous ArticleNext Article

In this issue

British Journal of General Practice: 59 (567)
British Journal of General Practice
Vol. 59, Issue 567
October 2009
  • Table of Contents
  • Index by author
Download PDF
Email Article

Thank you for recommending British Journal of General Practice.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person to whom you are recommending the page knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Cecil Helman: GP, anthropologist, writer, poet, teacher, and internationalist
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from British Journal of General Practice
(Your Name) thought you would like to see this page from British Journal of General Practice.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Citation Tools
Cecil Helman: GP, anthropologist, writer, poet, teacher, and internationalist
Surinder Singh, Joe Rosenthal
British Journal of General Practice 2009; 59 (567): 790. DOI: 10.3399/bjgp09X472782

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero

Share
Cecil Helman: GP, anthropologist, writer, poet, teacher, and internationalist
Surinder Singh, Joe Rosenthal
British Journal of General Practice 2009; 59 (567): 790. DOI: 10.3399/bjgp09X472782
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One
  • Mendeley logo Mendeley

Jump to section

  • Top
  • Article
    • Footnotes
  • Info
  • eLetters
  • PDF

More in this TOC Section

The Back Pages

  • Who Is My Patient?
  • Working with vulnerable families in deprived areas
  • What is the collective noun for a group of patients?
Show more The Back Pages

Appreciation

  • Professor Ian Richardson
  • George Godber GCB
Show more Appreciation

Related Articles

Cited By...

Intended for Healthcare Professionals

BJGP Life

BJGP Open

 

Tweets by @BJGPjournal

 
 

British Journal of General Practice

NAVIGATE

  • Home
  • Current Issue
  • All Issues
  • Online First
  • Authors & reviewers

RCGP

  • BJGP for RCGP members
  • BJGP Open
  • RCGP eLearning
  • InnovAiT Journal
  • Jobs and careers

MY ACCOUNT

  • RCGP members' login
  • Subscriber login
  • Activate subscription
  • Terms and conditions

NEWS AND UPDATES

  • About BJGP
  • Alerts
  • RSS feeds
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

AUTHORS & REVIEWERS

  • Submit an article
  • Writing for BJGP: research
  • Writing for BJGP: other sections
  • BJGP editorial process & policies
  • BJGP ethical guidelines
  • Peer review for BJGP

CUSTOMER SERVICES

  • Advertising
  • Contact subscription agent
  • Copyright
  • Librarian information

CONTRIBUTE

  • BJGP Life
  • eLetters
  • Feedback

CONTACT US

BJGP Journal Office
RCGP
30 Euston Square
London NW1 2FB
Tel: +44 (0)20 3188 7400
Email: journal@rcgp.org.uk

British Journal of General Practice is an editorially-independent publication of the Royal College of General Practitioners
© 2023 British Journal of General Practice

Print ISSN: 0960-1643
Online ISSN: 1478-5242