Shapeshifters: A Doctor’s Notes on Medicine & Human Change
About this ebook
'A wonderful series of meditations - clinical, anthropological, literary and deeply humane - on his patients and their illnesses.' Henry Marsh
Timely, thought-provoking and eloquent, brimming both with warmth and insight, he puts himself among the ranks of ... Oliver Sacks and Atul Gawande.' The Times
Unreliable bodies and shifting symptoms are all in a day's work for a GP.
In his years of practising, Gavin Francis has seen it all: the promising law student trapped under the spell of anorexia; the bodybuilder whose use of illegal steroids threatens his fertility; the teenager agonising over the perplexing physical dramas of puberty; and the surprisingly upbeat woman growing a horn in the centre of her forehead.
In Shapeshifters he draws on his patients' bodily transformations, both welcome and unwelcome, bringing together case histories and accounts from the history of medicine, art, literature, myth and magic to show how the very essence of being human is change.
About the author
Gavin Francis is a GP, and the author of True North and Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence & Emperor Penguins, which won the Scottish Book of the Year Award and was shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize and Costa Prize. He also writes for the Guardian, the Times, London Review of Books and Granta. He lives in Edinburgh with his wife and children. Find him on Twitter @gavinfranc and online at www.gavinfrancis.com.
Wellcome Collection is a free museum and library that aims to challenge how we think and feel about health. Inspired by the medical objects and curiosities collected by Henry Wellcome, it connects science, medicine, life and art. Wellcome Collection exhibitions, events and books explore a diverse range of subjects, including consciousness, forensic medicine, emotions, sexology, identity and death. wellcomecollection.org
