§'Stylish and exhilarating... from a wide-ranging mind and a profound humanity... inspiring' Hilary Mantel
'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 andaccounts from the history of medicine, art, literature, myth and magic to show how the very essence of being human is change.
'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 andaccounts from the history of medicine, art, literature, myth and magic to show how the very essence of being human is change.
A wonderful series of meditations - clinical, anthropological, literary and deeply humane - on his patients and their illnesses. Henry Marsh
Stylish and exhilarating... from a wide-ranging mind and a profound humanity. With warmth and wit, Gavin Francis examines the body's strategies for survival and change, embedding his thoughts in a broad frame of reference from across human culture and history. Each piece is a pleasure to read, and in sum they are inspiring. Hilary Mantel