Gavin Francis
Scottish GP and writer; author of Adventures in Human Being, Shapeshifters, Intensive Care and Recovery.
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Recommends rcmnd
rcmnd What they recommend 6 things — each backed by an exact quote.
Compiled by rcmnd.app, not by them: the quotes are theirs, and each links to the post it was copied from.
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Recommends Frissure
So it's a book which is utterly original and gets at something very real and valuable about convalescence. Sometimes I find myself recommending it to patients.
fivebooks.com 16 Apr 2018
Loved Intoxicated By My Illness
I appreciate this book for its irreverence, the elegance of its prose and because the essays in it are succinct, punchy, with the tyrannical discipline that newspaper journalism has to have.
fivebooks.com 16 Apr 2018
Loved A Fortunate Man: The Story of a Country Doctor
The book becomes an extended meditation on the practice of medicine, which is an attempt to engage a deep sense of fraternity.
fivebooks.com 16 Apr 2018
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Mixed on On Being Ill
I think it's a really important piece of writing just because it's so beautifully executed. That said, it does lose its way about half way through, and Woolf goes off in pursuit of some enthusiasms that I don't share.
fivebooks.com 16 Apr 2018
Liked That the Best Physician is Also a Philosopher
There's another ancient text I could have mentioned: Galen's That the Best Physician is Also a Philosopher. It's essentially a call to arms for doctors to concentrate on the perfection of their clinical skills and to give up on ideas of attempts to get rich through their art. It shows all the ways in which he doesn't trust those doctors who use their talents for a gain other than the benefit of their patients. It is short and elegant.
fivebooks.com 16 Apr 2018
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Recommends Hippocratic Writings
So right there at the beginning, before there was even a profession such as medicine, there is some writing with a scientific appreciation of the body and how to make it better. There's no dogma here, because they're constantly asking, try this for yourself, prove me wrong! And there is also the beginning of a professional ethic about a group of people who should hold each other to high moral and clinical standards. A few of the writings complain about quacks, who rip people off, and don't pay attention to the high standards.
fivebooks.com 16 Apr 2018
Where they publish
Site gavinfrancis.com His site: books, essays and journalism on medicine.
Link verified 5 Sept 2026.
x.com @gavinfranc His posting on medicine, books and writing.
Link verified 5 Sept 2026.
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