An Amazing Murmur of the Heart: feeling the patient's beat

This is a searching look at the disappearance of the patient as a person from 21st century medicine, told through the stories of his many patients by the author of best-selling Suburban Shaman*. Cecil Helman - GP, medical anthropologist and acclaimed writer - looks back on a life-time of encounters with patients to ask 'Where has the patient gone?' and answers that patients 'are still here, waiting for their doctors to notice them again, to shift their attention away from all their magic machines and high tech tests, and to listen to their stories again. And hidden away in those stories, to hear the faint, almost inaudible, murmuring of their hearts.' Whether you are on the receiving or the delivery end of health care, Cecil Helman's humane and penetrating account will open your eyes to what happens when patient and doctor meet, and how that interaction might transcend the current focus on single symptoms and test results.