DOCTOR YOU

by Jeremy Howick

(Coronet £9.99) A CLINICAL epidemiologist, writes Jeremy Howick, ‘is a geek word for someone who uses statistics to find out if treatments work’.

His research in this field at Oxford University has persuaded him we all take far too many drugs.

‘Modern medicine has had some unintended and harmful consequences,’ he writes. We are using too much of it, it can be risky, it is bankrupting us and we have forgotten how remarkable our own bodies are at healing without medicine.’

He argues that 21stcentury medicine should begin with patients taking a more questioning attitude to their health and with doctors dispensing empathy before drugs.

Alternative though these ideas may seem, Howick supports them with a persuasive wealth of scientific data.