Customer Reviews

From Voodoo to Viagra: The Magic of Medicine: 37 Uplifting Essays from a Doctor's Bag of Tricks

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This collection of vignettes is timely, and as always with Dr. London, hysterically funny. You definitely don't have to be in the medical profession to find his anecdotes simply delicious antidotes to daily life. Readers will recognize characters and symptons they've either known or experienced themselves and get a good dose of the laughing cure along with the story. But what's best about Dr. London's humor is its humanity. It's clear that he cares about his patients even when they try his, well, patience. Plus, he is a delightfully clever writer. Best to read his books in a group for the full effect - each funnier than the next.

As one of Dr. London's patients (that's not his real name), I feel honored every time I talk to him on the phone or have an appointment with him. But that's not what this review is about. It's about a tremendously smart, superbly funny and surprisingly insightful series of essays about doctor-patient relationships. Dr. London has his patients -- and readers -- pegged. Now that I've read this one, I'm getting the rest of his books.

I was expecting insightful essays of the type that Atul Gawande writes (cf. "A Surgeon's Notes on Performance") which combine anecdote and research. The first few essays of this book (I then gave up), mostly consisted of poor attempts at humour.