The structure of this book makes no sense to me but I still loved it, which says a lot. It shared countless interesting little anecdotes about patients and doctors and the history of medicine. It also spent some time discussing different and often critical attitudes toward the field of family medicine, which I appreciated. Overall 5/5 it made me want to marry a carpenter and move to rural Maine and make maple syrup and be a family practice doc.

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.

John McPhee tells the story of different family practice physicians who chose to practice in rural Maine in the early 1980s, when this was a newer medical sub-specialty resurrected. He brings out the lives of about a dozen doctors, their patients and their conditions as they visit these doctors, and intersperses these stories with explanations of how this medical specialty is different and how it fits into the towns where they serve. The book is good but it doesn't feel like it comes fully together as a book.

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

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.

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!

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.

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.

Amazing book, must read for Maine medical students. Interesting reflection on the state of specialization in medicine in the 80s. Written with wit, humor and poise, lovely read and reflection.

Quick reading book about what the title says: Family Practice as the heir of the GP. Great, very short, stories and vignettes make the point that there is more to medicine than medicine and that time and listening are often more important to caring relationshps over time.

A slightly dated piece, but one brim full of respect and appreciation for family doctors. McPhee makes a persuasive case for the crucial importance of the family doctor, and its advantage over the specialty approach. Using anecdotes and focusing on the story of a few doctors he brings to live people of care, concern, and great devotion.

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