Making a Good Doctor by Schei, Edvin; Heath, Iona; Dorward, Peter;

Short description:

We can all find ourselves lost from time to time— whether we are near the beginning, the middle, or the ends of our professional lives. Doctors are no exception. ‘Making a Good Doctor’ addresses core questions which lie at the heart of what is to be a doctor. What is our work for? How do we learn to be good at it?  

Long description:

‘Doctors will love this book. It speaks to them in profoundly personal ways, and also in stimulating intellectual ways [and] full of source material to help doctors and educators shape a better world in medicine.’ – Moira Stewart, PhD, Distinguished University Professor Emeritus, Centre for Studies in Family Medicine, Western University, Canada

What does it mean to be a good doctor? How do we learn to respond well to suffering—both our patients’ and our own—and to sustain ourselves in systems that so often undermine those very values we must hold on to?

In this anthology a group of physicians from five countries—ranging from newly qualified doctors to internationally recognized scholars—come together to reflect on the tensions and promises of current medical education and practice. Making a Good Doctor is a weave of academic inquiry, personal narrative, literary reflection, and pedagogical dialogue.

Across eighteen chapters, the book explores the emergence of medicalization, over-diagnosis, alienation, burnout, moral injury, and the commodification of care. It celebrates the joy of medicine, its power to heal— the transformative force of listening, of dialogue, of shared presence.

Key Features

• Offers a uniquely holistic combination of personal stories and critical perspectives on current medical education and practice


• Builds around a person-centred ideal that sets the humanity of both patients and professionals at the centre of medical education and practice


• Expresses ideas and ideals that have been tested in educational practice and have solid theoretical underpinnings in medical philosophy and psychological and pedagogical research

This book is directed toward the medical practitioner, educator, or student interested in understanding more about the forces that shape, and distort, medical culture and healthcare systems. It is for those interested in developing insight; in learning techniques for collaboration, resistance, resilience, and change.

A PDF version of this book is available for free in Open Access at www.taylorfrancis.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 International license.

Table of Contents:

1. Beginning  2. I Dread This  3. Framing the Problem: Suffering and Knowing in the World of Things
4. When Death Comes to Work  5. Medicine: We Make It; It Makes Us  6. Levels of Experience  7. Steps Toward Deep Listening  8. Your Everyday, My Once in a Lifetime  9. Dialogue and Healing  10. Attending to the Unsaid: On Knowing, Care, and Strength  11. I’ll Take it With me When I Go  12. Alienation, Resonance and the Formation of Physicians  13. Second Thoughts – Reflections on Early Medical Career Experiences  14. Wisdom in Medical Practice  15. Why I Run  16. Dualisms, Bread and Roses, and Finding Joy  17. The Planning of Magic  18. End