Overview

Throughout history, many doctors have worked outside the occupation for which they were originally trained. Not Your Ordinary Doctor reveals sixty such medical truants who found fame in fields other than medicine. Meet Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's inspiration for Sherlock Holmes; cringe as Stalin tortures each of his eight doctors; follow John Keats, who abandons medicine to pursue his literary career. Within these pages are doctors who attended rulers such as Elizabeth I, Napoleon and Alexander the Great; artists, musicians and writers such as Somerset Maugham and Anton Chekhov; sporting heroes and adventurers including W.G. Grace and Che Guevara; and on a darker note, mass murderers like Hastings Banda and Buck Ruxton. Not Your Ordinary Doctor is a titillating collection filled with historical curiosities, fascinating whimsy and fresh speculation. These stories are by turns heroic and absurd, dazzling and ghoulish, inspired and tragic and, in the hands of master storyteller Jim Leavesley, never dull.

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9781742373300

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Jim Leavesley was born in the northern England seaside holiday resort of Blackpool. He graduated from Liverpool in medicine in 1953 and emigrated to Western Australia in 1957. After 33 years in general practice he and his wife Margaret retired to the Margaret River area. During the previous 10 years he had written a fortnightly column for the medical newspaper, Australian Doctor, but now he enlarged his horizon. From 1986 to date he has presented a weekly medical history segment on the radio and has been an irregular guest speaker on the Science Programmes of ABC National Radio. Out of these presentations have been published 5 books. In 1998 he teamed up with Dr George Biro and together they have written 3 books on medical history; What Killed Jane Austen, How Isaac Newton Lost His Marbles and Flies in the Ointment. In 1993 he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for 'services to medicine in general and medical history in particular'.

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