Books: How Not to be a Doctor and Other Essays

‘Listen to the patient. He is telling you the diagnosis.’

(19th-century physician William Osler)

Only around 1-in-10 of the million people who visit NHS GPs every weekday have their symptoms further investigated in secondary care. So what of the 90% who are not referred? Do they feel less worried, cared for, and more able to cope with their symptoms when they leave the surgery? As we know, this is a complex process and involves listening, acknowledgement, and communication skills.

The problem with the training of doctors is that so much of it takes place in hospitals with the 10% of people who have already become ‘patients’, and by specialist doctors whose job it is to understand their symptoms in terms of defined medical diseases. So how do doctors learn about how to help the 90% majority? Dr John Launer has been one of those many broadminded and imaginative teachers who have worked to hone that understanding, helping GPs to be better general practice doctors and not just hospital-trained doctors. This book of 54 short, concise essay pieces is very readable and can be dipped into whenever one has a few minutes to spare and time to reflect, with insights for patients too. A quick glance down the intriguing titles of the essays in the book’s contents will grab anyone’s attention and draw them in. Ideas range from how capitalism is influencing health care to acknowledging our deepest, secret sexual desires. If that alone doesn’t insist that the reader must beg, buy, or borrow this book, I don’t know what will!

• © British Journal of General Practice 2019