Unreliable bodies and shifting symptoms are all in a day’s work for a GP.
This fascinating collection cuts to the heart of existence.
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.
Read an extract from the book
- Date published
- Format
- Paperback
- Extent
- 304 pages
- ISBN
- 9781781257746
About the author
Gavin Francis
Dr Gavin Francis has worked across four continents as a surgeon, emergency physician, medical officer with the British Antarctic Survey and latterly as a GP. He’s the author of the Sunday Times-bestselling ‘Adventures in Human Being’ and ‘Recovery’, as well as ‘Shapeshifters’ and ‘Intensive Care’. He also writes for the Guardian, The Times, the London Review of Books and Granta.