Kill as Few Patients as Possible: And 56 Other Essays on How to Be the World's Best Doctor

The senior residents in my family practice residency gave each of the interns a copy upon finishing our internship. As a retired (Gentile) physician after almost 30 years I can tell you that I have lived each of these chapters. I still take it out and read it from time to time. Like all humor there is embedded a grain of truth. I think you must be a primary care practitioner to really appreciate the wisdom and insight he imparts with each chapter. What some readers observed to be trivial or lighthearted sarcasm I find brilliant and hilarious at the same time.Most people do not realize that physicians, especially primary care physicians, interact with people, their patients, on a personal level in a way unique to the practice of medicine and nursing. Take a time machine back 100, 200 years into the past it was no different. Nowhere else except maybe in a Catholic confessional will people divulge such personal often bizarre behavior, thoughts, and feelings. I still marvel at the level of trust that patients willingly give their physician, who for all intents and purposes is a total stranger.Notwithstanding the nasty “business” of corporate medicine, big pharma and regulations, the practice of medicine is and always will be a very personal experience for all of us. It has always been about the patient for me. Having the privilege of treating thousands of patients in civilian practice and during my military service has been both professionally and personally rewarding as well as a great privilege.

I am a physician, so reading Dr. London's semihumorous review of how he has survived the vagaries of office practice and been an advocate for his patients has been a confirmation of some of my own prejudices. Some of his revelations, such the fact that physicians don't know everything nor diagnose every disease accurately, may come as a shock to some people. Medicine involves one imperfect human being caring for a series of similarly flawed people who happen to be sick and distressed by their illness. It's a miracle, given the variability of illness, and the tendency of patients to deviate from the "textbook" descriptions, that we save as many as we do. The book injects a needed reality into the mysterious world of office practice, which is far different from the hospital environment usually dramatized on TV.It's a worthwhile addition to the popular medical literature; it won't tell you how to cure your ulcer or stave off a heart attack, but it will tell you what makes your doctor tick. Bravo, Dr. London!

Oh geez, I have never laughed so hard. This guy is definitely one of the funniest doctors and columnists that ever existed. I needed something to lighten the research I am doing currently on eugenics and the deaf community for my dissertation, and this book fit the bill. London, if that is really his name, had a capacity to see the humorous and explain it to the general public in such a way, that we see the the situation as he perceives it. That is the sign of a great writer. He also obviously takes his whole profession with a large grain of salt, which is so widely missing in most physicians. It's like the teach LackofHumor 101 in medical schools...they are not allowed to be funny or see anything funny in what they do. Thank heavens London does not feel that way, or we would be missing some major yuks! London is a verbal slap-stick version of a doctor, along the line of the Three Stooges and Andy Rooney mixed together. I totally plan on making some of my doctor friends read this so they get a sense of humor! Karen Sadler, Science education, University of Pittsburgh

I became positive my father had written this book during Dr. Arlan Cohn's (aka Oscar London, M.D., W.B.D.) discussion of office music: "If [a doctor] wants to destroy his practice, he might consider bringing in an accordion player. (One night at a restaurant, I reached out and plunged my dinner knife into the bellows of an approaching accordion; the stricken look on the player's face when the wind was knocked out of his "Lady of Spain" was well worth the price of damages.)"Okay, so my father is a deceased dentist and Dr. Cohn is a 70-something internist, but these men were psychic twins. This book snaps, crackles, and pops--to borrow the author's phrase when comparing chiropractors to breakfast cereal--although by the end of it, I still hadn't decided whether I'd want Dr. Cohn to be my internist. He underprescribes pain medications for fear of turning his patients and himself into junkies, but on the other hand (bless you, Dr. Cohn!) he treats gas and lower back pain. Most internists--well, their eyes glaze over if you complain about gas or lower back pain.Incidentally, the W.B.D. after this author's name stands for "World's Best Doctor" and in this book he shares fifty-seven short essays on how you too can aspire to be a 'W.B.D.'If laughter truly has the power to lower blood pressure, improve digestion, and help insomnia, you'll be in ruddy good health by the time you reach Dr. Cohn's "Afterword" which he subtitles "You'll Have to be the World's Best Patient to Survive Managed Care." The Afterword isn't as funny as the rest of the book, at least to those of us who have survived treatment at an HMO.One of the author's suggestions could be helpful to anyone, physician or not, who wants to avoid long, pointless meetings. Just let the meeting organizers know that you have a mild case of Hansen's Disease.A.k.a. leprosy.

As someone who is as jaded as I am about the medical field, I was hoping for more serious inquiry and less humor.I do think the book has many helpful stories that may elucidate positive feelings from many medical consumers, some who may feel their doctors know more than they actually do.I am one who feels the doctors definitely know less than they tell us, so I was hoping for more inquiry and less self-inlfation via humor.But still worth reading.

Very funny - should be given to all Doctor as the leave to become doctors

Excellent read for students in medical school (before they get inundated with studies)

I enjoyed most of these. I have bought the book for medical friends. They also liked it, as the curate's egg; good in parts. It is just a tad American but quite true to life regarding the foibles of both doctor and patient. Some vignettes are hilarious; others twee. Well worth a read but mainly for "med-heads".