Suburban Shaman: Tales from medicine's front line

'Medicine is not just about science. It's also all about stories, and about the mingling of narratives among doctors, and between them and their patients.'

So writes Cecil Helman after 27 years as a family practitioner in and around London, interlaced with training and research as a medical anthropologist, comparing a wide variety of medical systems and other forms of healing. This unique combination of frontline health worker and detached academic informs the many stories that make up this...