Heirs of General Practice by John McPhee

Heirs of General Practice Reviews

• 
  Tony

  This book about family practice in medicine and the doctors who, well, practice it was written in the 1980s but does not feel dated. Ailments haven't changed much, really, and I suspect Maine, where most of the doctoring in this book takes place, hasn't changed much either.
  
  I read McPhee because he has a way with words, like describing the doctor who wears a cross in his lapel and has personally been obstetricated twice.
  
  I also read him because of the cool things I learn. Like about the condition called "Iowa ear". The farmer on his tractor looks over his right shoulder, watching his planter or plow and sighting back down the row. This aims his left ear toward the tractor's engine. Which causes hearing loss, invariably in the left ear.
  
  It's hard to describe how happy knowing that little chestnut makes me.
  
  FYI: This "book" also appears in the McPhee collection:
  Table of Contents.
• 
  Dave

  At a time when reading the news makes me horrified, and then more horrified, it was a great relief to read this book about doctors choosing to go into "family practice"--to choose to work in rural settings, treat the whole patient, and even make house calls. McPhee is careful not to mythologize these real people--they are not SuperDocs, but they are truly admirable human beings. And, of course, since he's a brilliant writer, McPhee has fun describing doctors and patients and adding the occasional clever spin, or twist, or joke. My favorite is this phrase

  ...the town's other doctor wears a cross in his lapel and has personally been obstetricated twice.

  
  which sent me to Google in vain before I realized it was the medical equivalent of "born again."
  
  
• 
  Ben

  Delightful quick read!
• 
  David

  I come from a family of general practitioners - my mother was a G.P. and my sister followed in her footsteps - and I am a fan of John McPhee's writing, in general. So I expected to like this book more than I actually did. The book follows the standard McPhee schema - in-depth reporting on a very specific topic, in this case doctors who choose to work as general practitioners. McPhee provides vignettes of a dozen or so such doctors, almost all of them working in Maine.
  
  McPhee is usually very effective in working from the specific to reach more general insights, and it is clear that he would like to do the same here. That is, by focusing on doctors who have opted out of the mainstream, he would like to illuminate some general truths about the practice of mainstream medicine. However, I think his success in doing so is limited, rarely rising above statement of the obvious. By focusing his microscope only on family practitioners working in Maine, the generalizability of any lessons they might offer is questionable. The needs of communities in Maine cannot be considered particularly representative of the U.S. in general.
  So the book never really becomes anything more than a series of isolated vignettes of some individual 'maverick' doctors.
  
  Which is interesting as far as it goes, but I wish McPhee had been able to do more with the material. By the end I felt that an opportunity had been missed.
• 
  Sarah Boyle

  This was EXCELLENT. Extremely engaging, fascinating, and helped to lessen the stigma surrounding family practice physicians. I am not entering the medical field and I found this to be an enjoyable read. Highly recommend for anyone interested in the doctor-patient relationship.
• 
  Tovah

  You guys, my dad is in this book!
• 
  Erik Lindstrom

  I received this book from a patient and ever so grateful. It offers a beautiful and (almost) timeless lens into the joys, complexities, rewards and struggles of Family Practice. I had to keep glancing at the year it was published. It’s soon to be a staple on my desk to revisit when I need a reminder of why I love what I do in Family Medicine.
• 
  Rachel

  This book jumps a lot which McPhee employing several different narrative and investigative writing styles. The beginning and throughout are too choppy moving from one patient to next as to imitate the sense the family/general practitioner may experience seeing many diverse patients consecutively. While this may mirror the feeling of witnessing a quick patient turnover, I would have appreciated it if McPhee used his interviewing skills to investigate further and provide more information than just the superficial. Even if decisions are made quickly, they require years of experience to make.
  
  The big question of the book is whether General Practice is justified in modern medicine as a specialty and whether its doctors can keep up with the vastness of knowledge. He makes the case that in rural areas, as in Maine where the book is set, that only GPs have the interest and time to get to know and follow generations of families. It also appears that the GPs knowledge is mostly too superficial to meet the need. In all, I wish McPhee would have gone more in-depth with both the medical diagnoses and the interpersonal interactions. He reveals, to his credit, a lot on inter-doctoring politics and territory grabs. It would be interesting to read essays on other medical specialties.
• 
  Tyler Kellis

  A fun, often humorous, look into the need for family medicine. It follows about 12 doctors and shares why certain patient presentations would best be served by the family doc. I thought all in all it was a little hard to follow, but the topics made for a great book discussion. I think I would actually read it again one day, since it was such a short read and gets your mind thinking, especially if one is considering family Med. Last thought; very impressive how this book was written in the 80’s but the argument fits the current healthcare climate just as well.
• 
  Rowan

  An interesting and entertaining glimpse into rural family medicine. Even though this was written in the '80s, it still feels incredibly relevant, and rings true with what I've been seeing firsthand in my work as a medical scribe at a family practice. McPhee is also a great writer. He surrounds vignettes of doctors and the patients they see with context around the development of the field of family medicine and the cultural context of rural Maine, and writes in an engaging and accessible voice.
• 
  Tom

  An excerpt of this book appeared in The New Yorker in 1984. That article was very influential for many of us in our early careers in family medicine. The book follows a group of new graduates of a family medicine program in the state of Maine as they engage in rural practice. At the time family medicine had the trappings of a 'movement' in medicine, vestiges of which continue to animate some of us in what is now the 'old guard'.
• 
  Sharon Bautista

  I didn’t check when this book was published. The edition I bought made me think maybe it was early McPhee, but, no, far from it. I’m not sure how McPhee got access to the patient information that makes up this book—maybe a benefit of writing about doctors at the fringes—but the writing style felt more rote here than other McPhee. He weaves a few threads, but it’s not the rushing waters of the McPhee I love most.
• 
  Adriana Chen

  I personally enjoyed the book because of the insights it gave me into family medicine in rural Maine. It did become tedious sometimes, where the author just lists off patient after patient, doctor after doctor without really giving a coherent message or theme. Much like a portrait, it focuses more on atmosphere and function than structure. (Last line paraphrasing a critique of Wong Kar Wai’s Fallen Angels lol.)
  
  Recommend for those who want to know more about family/rural medicine!
• 
  Tom

  What can I say about John McPhee that I haven't already said in previous reviews. He can take any subject and make it interesting. It matters not if your particular interest lies elsewhere. All of a sudden the book turns into a page turner, you can't wait to get back to it book and you are sorry when it's finished. Just pick up one of McPhee's books and see for yourself.
• 
  Katelyn

  An excellent portrait of the heart of family medicine. The fine details of the patients and doctors alike in a case report style are written with such compassion I almost thought the author to be a family physician himself. This book should be required reading for all medical students and for anyone who has ever been a patient. Definitely a book I will be recommending to all my friends!
• 
  Henry

  It’s well written like all of his books, however, I just didn’t find it as compelling or deeply researched as others.
• 
  Michelle Bechtel

  I believe I was assigned to read this book as propaganda to become a Maine general practitioner
• 
  Rebecca McPhedran

  What an honest and straightforward book about an important form of medicine. I loved this book. It was short, but very meaningful. McPhee gives small glimpses into the lives of doctors who have chosen to practice family medicine. They subscribe to the idea that if a doctor treats your parents, your grandparents and your extended family, they will be more skillful at treating you.
  This is the story of the Family Medicine Institute in Augusta, Maine. And how it has revolutionized small town medicine. McPhee follows a group of residents of The Dartmouth Family Practice and shows with honesty and berevity, the types of patients these doctors see on a daily basis. I may also be partial, because my grandfather was a major player in the forming of The Family Medicine Institute. If any form of medicine interests you, definitely read this book!
• 
  Owen Kendall

  An incredible book about Family Practice Physicians and their role in American health care, as well as the need for more family practice doctors who can provide the much-needed service of primary care. This service would make emergency medicine much less costly and would decrease the cost of health care in this country exponentially as well as increase the health and well-being of American citizens. But it's not an easy job being a family practice physician.
• 
  Jill

  I love books about medicine and doctoring (Gawande's Complications and Better, Groopman), even though I sometimes read them with a tinge of regret at what might have been had I decided to suck up 5 years of med school instead of pursuing the joys of a liberal arts education. In Heris of General Practice, Mc Phee delves into the lives of the men and women who go against conventional wisdom and opt for family medicine, instead of the more glamourous specialities such as cardiology.
• 
  Chris Gager

  This book was given to me as a gift by my niece and signed by the author. JM's daughter was/is a friend of my niece. I don't remember reading it or what happened to it as I don't have it any more. Maybe I read some of it. Date read is a guess.
• 
  Mitzi

  never read this interesting history of family medicine. read it!